There are four rounds of betting in limit Hold'em. The first round plays out before the flop (before the first three community cards are dealt, faceup), and on that first round you can bet and raise in one-unit increments. The second round occurs after the flop, and you can still bet and raise in exactly one-unit increments. The third round of betting occurs after the fourth card (fourth street or the turn) is flipped up, and now all bets and raises are made in two-unit increments. The fourth and final round of betting occurs after the fifth and final community card (the river) has been flipped up, and again you can bet and raise in two-unit increments.

Starting with the setup that I've illustrated (on page 19) in an eight-handed limit Hold'em hand, let's run through a $2-$4 sample hand. The dealer has dealt out two cards each, facedown, and the small blind of $1 and the big blind of $2 have been posted. Player one (PI) folds his hand, P2 (who holds, let's say, ace-jack, a hand that we will be referring to as A-J) raises, making it $4 to call the bet. P3, P4, and P5 all fold. P6, holding K-Q (king-queen), calls $4. The dealer and the small blind (SB) fold. The big blind (BB) calls the bet holding 9-8: because he already has $2 invested in the pot, it costs him only $2 more to see the flop. Now the dealer turns up a flop of 2-4-9.
Although P2 held the best preflop hand with his A-J, fortunes have changed on the flop. The player who sat in the BB with 9-8 is now the only player who has a pair (though he has no way to be certain of this), and suspecting that his pair might be the best hand, he bets $2. P2 and P6 somewhat loosely and stubbornly call the $2 bet, even though neither yet has a pair.

The turn card proves to be a 10, for a board of 2-4-9-10, and although the BB is a bit concerned by both this over card (a board card higher than his pair) and the fact that two players called his opening bet, he decides to stay aggressive and bets $4 (recall that third-round bets are doubled). P2 folds (wisely, because there are now only six cards in the deck that can save him—three aces and three jacks), and P6 (who now needs a jack for a straight, or a Q or a K to make him a pair) calls the $4 bet. P6's call is good, because with any jack, queen, or king probably winning for him, he has 10 probable winning cards, which are usually called outs in poker slang.

Fate isn't always just, however, and even though the odds were against it, the river card is a Q, for a 2-4-9-10-Q board, and the BB simply checks, figuring there is a good chance that if he wasn't already beaten by a starting hand like J-J or A-10, he is now vulnerable to any hand containing a queen. Now P6 bets $4, and BB sighs and calls the $4 bet. P6 shows his Q-K, for a pair of queens, and BB shows a 9-8 for his pair of nines. The pot is awarded to P6, who, perversely enough, had the second-best hand before the flop and the worst hand on both the flop and the turn!

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Third Round of Betting
After the second round of play is complete, the dealer flips up a fourth community card faceup. This card, which also stays on the table throughout the hand, is usually called either the turn or fourth street. Then the third round of betting begins. Again, the person closest to the left of the button who still has a live hand (hasn't folded) begins the betting, and, take note, the stakes are now doubled. (The bets are larger, but there are, in nearly all hands, fewer players—the others have folded.)

Fourth Round of Retting
After the third round of betting is complete, the dealer flips up the fifth and last community card, faceup in the middle of the table. This card is usually called either fifth street or the river (much more often). Now we have the five community cards in the middle of the table plus the two that you have in your hand: seven cards total. Each of you will settle on the best five cards out of the seven available to you (including one, two, or neither of the cards in your hand) to make your best possible poker hand. Now the fourth and final round of betting begins. After this round is completed, you will all flip up your hole cards to determine who has the best hand. Usually, once someone has shown a hand that no one else can beat, no one else bothers showing his hand at this point. (Sometimes a player who feels he got unlucky on the turn or the river may show a good hand that "went bad." We call this a "sympathy show.")

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After the first round of play is complete, the dealer flips three community cards faceup in the middle of the table. These are available for use by everyone (as we shall see), and they stay there throughout the hand. We call the three community cards (and the moment they are dealt) the flop. In every hand of Hold'em, the flop is a signal moment; for each player still in the hand, these three new community cards are likely to confirm his high hopes for the hand or all but shatter them, since there are just two cards still to come. Since the blinds are used only during the first round of betting, the first remaining player who is closest to the left of the button begins the action in the second round. You might suppose that this is the same player who had to post the small blind before any cards were dealt, but it's quite possible, even likely, that the small blind, the big blind, and other players have folded during the first round because the early-position players didn't like their own hands or because someone raised.

This person, the one who begins the second-round action, may now check (make no bet at all, but not fold his hand either; in effect, he is saying, "I'm not betting right now, but I retain my option to call bets or even to raise, later in the hand"), fold (you should never fold until someone has made a bet that you would otherwise have to at least call), or bet. It's possible that everyone will check, the pot remaining just as it was; in this case, too, this round of play is complete. But the appearance of the three flop cards on the table will change everyone's view of the hand.

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The only other betting rule you need to know about in the first round is that the two players in the blinds have the option of raising the bet, just as anyone else in the hand does when it is his turn to act. In an unraised pot in our hypothetical $2-$4 game, the small blind may come into play by adding $1 to complete his bet to the full $2 size, or $3 ($3 + $1 = $4) to complete one full raise, and the big blind, even though he already has his $2 in, has the option of raising the pot another $2.

In fact, a pro dealer will always ask the big blind if he wishes to raise it if the big blind hasn't made a motion one way or the other. I know that this may sound complicated at first, but after you've played about four hands it will seem very simple. (My parents played in a poker tournament the day after I taught them how to play, in September 2000.) Put more simply, when it's your turn to act during a Hold'em hand, you will always have the option of betting (when no one else has bet yet), checking (when no one has bet and you don't want to bet either), calling, raising, or folding.

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Now the blinds have been posted, and the dealer has dealt out each player's first two cards. Then, to begin the first round of play, the player to the left of the big blind acts first. Technically, the two blind bettors have "acted" first, by posting their bets, but because their "action" is involuntary, the player sitting to the left of the big blind is really the first player who faces a decision, and the first who will take some kind of voluntary action, as he sees fit.

Note that the blinds are posted only before the very first betting round. After that, the player closest to the button's left (the one who had posted the small blind on the first round) is the first to act, if he is still in the hand.

During the first betting round, the player to the left of the posted blinds has just three options: calling the bet (matching the big blind), raising the bet (to exactly double the big blind), or folding his hand. (All calls or raises are placed in front of the player, in the pot, so that you can keep track of who has put in what: when the betting on a round is done, then you drag it all into the pot.) Usually, players fold by gently tossing or sliding their cards into the middle of the table facedown, without comment; but a verbal declaration—saying simply, "I fold"—is also acceptable and is considered binding: you must then release your hand. Although poker involves a great deal of deception, if you state that you're taking an action, you must follow through. You can't say "I fold" and then, after hearing a sigh of relief, push chips into the pot to make a bet. Similarly, you can't say "I raise" and then toss in your cards instead.

The next player to act has the same three options as the preceding player: he may call, raise, or fold. The next player to act also has the same options—call, raise, or fold—and so on until the action in the first round of betting is complete. Once the action is completed, the first round is over. (By the way, if you follow my advice in the chapters on strategy, you will be folding frequently on the first round of betting, as Hold'em is a real game of patience.)

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Once the blinds are posted in the pot (directly in front of the players), the dealer deals two cards facedown to each player, one card at a time. The position of the button and the two blinds determines whose turn it is to act first during a hand of Texas Hold'em. (The illustration shows a poker table with players sitting around it, the blinds posted and two down cards in front of each player.) The cards that have been dealt are your own "private" cards, often called hole cards; take care not to let your neighbors see them. They belong to you and you only for the duration of one hand, and as soon as you see them, you should begin assessing the strength of your hand. Later on in the hand, the dealer will be dealing cards faceup in the middle of the table, where everyone can see them. This isn't a mistake: these later cards are community cards, and I'll explain how they fit into the dealing and the betting in just a moment.

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