Texas Hold’em is a community card poker game that is played with a standard 52-card deck. The game starts to the left of the dealer button. The blind bet(s) are made from the position(s) left of the dealer button and are forced bets, which must be made before the cards are dealt. Two cards (hole cards) are dealt to each player, one at a time, face down, in rotation. This is followed by the first round of betting. A player may check, bet, call, raise or fold.
Three cards (the flop) are then dealt face up in the middle of the table as community cards (board cards) and the second round of betting occurs. The fourth community card is dealt face up (the turn), followed by the third round of betting. The final community card (the river) is dealt face up and followed by the fourth (final) round of betting.
At the showdown, each player may use any combination of the hole cards and community cards, or may play the board and use no hole cards to make the highest ranking five-card poker hand. The player with the highest ranking five-card poker hand wins the pot. In the event of a tie, the pot is split equally.