After
slow but steady gains in popularity throughout the 20th
century, hold 'em's popularity surged in the 2000s due
to exposure on television, on the Internet and in popular
literature. During this time hold 'em replaced 7 card
stud as the most common game in U.S. casinos, almost
totally eclipsing the once popular game. The no-limit
betting form is used in the widely televised main event
of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker
Tour (WPT).
Because
each player starts with only two cards and the remaining
cards are shared, it is an excellent game for strategic
analysis (including mathematical analysis). Hold 'em's
simplicity and popularity have inspired a wide variety
of strategy books which provide recommendations for
proper play. Most of these books recommend a strategy
that involves playing relatively few hands but betting
and raising often with the hands one plays.
In
Texas hold 'em, like all variants of poker, individuals
compete for an amount of money contributed by the players
themselves (called the pot). Because the cards are dealt
randomly and outside the control of the players, each
player attempts to control the amount of money in the
pot based on the hand the player holds.
The
game is divided into a series of hands or deals; at
the conclusion of each hand, the pot is typically awarded
to one player (an exception in which the pot is divided
between more than one player is discussed below). A
hand may end at the showdown, in which case the remaining
players compare their hands and the highest hand is
awarded the pot; that highest hand is usually held by
only one player, but can be held by more in the case
of a tie. The other possibility for the conclusion of
a hand is when all but one player have folded and have
thereby abandoned any claim to the pot, in which case
the pot is awarded to the player who has not folded.
The
objective of winning players is not winning every individual
hand, but rather making mathematically correct decisions
regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold.
By making such decisions, winning poker players maximize
long-term winnings by maximizing their expected utility
on each round of betting.
