Texas Hold'em is the most popular form of poker by a wide margin. When people say "poker" online, they usually mean Texas Hold'em. If you've watched a poker tournament on TV or played with friends in the last twenty years, it was almost certainly Hold'em. This guide covers the Texas Hold'em rules, the hand rankings, the best starting hands, and how to play Texas Hold'em free online today.
Not exactly. Poker is a family of card games, and Texas Hold'em is one of them. It's just so popular that the two words are often used interchangeably. Poker vs. Texas Hold'em is like "sandwich" vs. "BLT": every Texas Hold'em game is poker, but not every poker game is Texas Hold'em.
Each player gets two private cards, called hole cards. Five community cards are dealt face-up in the middle of the table in stages. You make the best five-card hand you can from any combination of your hole cards and the community cards, and bet on it across four rounds. The best hand at showdown wins the pot, or the last player left after everyone else folds.
A disc called the button marks the dealer position and moves one seat clockwise each hand. Before the cards are dealt, the player to the left of the button posts the small blind, and the next player posts the big blind. These forced bets give everyone something to play for from the first card.
Starting to the left of the button, each player gets two hole cards face-down, visible only to them.
Betting happens preflop (right after the deal), on the flop (the first three community cards), on the turn (the fourth), and on the river (the fifth and final card). When it's your turn, you can fold, call, or raise, or check or bet if no one has bet yet.
If two or more players are still in after the river, they reveal their hands and the best one wins. If everyone else folds earlier, the last player standing takes the pot without showing.
That's the whole shape of a hand. For the complete rules of Texas Hold'em, including side pots and every betting term, see our Texas Hold'em rules.
From strongest to weakest, the Texas Hold'em hands are: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card. The best hand in Texas Hold'em is a royal flush (A-K-Q-J-10 of one suit), and high card is the weakest.
See the full poker hand rankings, with every hand illustrated.
Before any community cards come out, some hands are simply stronger than others. The best starting hand in Texas Hold'em is a pair of Aces. Kings, Queens, and big suited cards like Ace-King follow close behind. 7-2 offsuit is the textbook worst.
Chips, cards, and position covers how starting-hand strength should shape your decisions once the cards are out.
Yes. A two-player game is called heads-up, and the blinds work differently. The dealer posts the small blind and acts first before the flop, then acts last on every round after. Because you're in a blind every hand, heads-up plays faster and more aggressively than a full table.
RbPkr has a dedicated heads-up queue if you want to play against another real player right now.
Hold'em itself comes in a few betting formats: no-limit (bet any amount up to your whole stack), limit (fixed bet sizes), and pot-limit (bet up to the size of the pot). Beyond Hold'em, the most common poker variations are:
RbPkr deals classic Texas Hold'em, the version you play against other people.
No card room near you? RbPkr lets you play Texas Hold'em online, free, right in your browser. There's no download, no app to install, and no real money involved. Every game is free. Jump into a public game, where seats go first come, first served, or start a private game and invite your crew with a link or QR code. Playing around a real poker table? Cards-only mode deals to everyone's phone while you use real chips.