Texas hold'em

The button marks who is last to act. It moves one seat to the left every hand. The two seats after it post the blinds before any cards are dealt: the small blind is half the table minimum, the big blind is the table minimum. The blinds are live bets, not a fee.

Then four rounds of betting, with cards turned over between them:

1. Pre-flop — two cards to each player, face down and yours alone.
2. The flop — three cards on the board, shared by everyone.
3. The turn — a fourth board card.
4. The river — a fifth, and the last.

On each round you can fold, check, call, bet or raise. A raise is entered as the total you are raising to, not the amount you are adding.

Strongest first, read off the evaluator that ranks them:

1. Straight Flush
2. Four of a Kind
3. Full House
4. Flush
5. Straight
6. Three of a Kind
7. Two Pair
8. Pair
9. High Card

An ace can be the low card of a five-high straight as well as the top of a broadway one. Your best hand is the best five cards out of the seven available to you, and you do not have to use either of your own.

If you go all in for less than the current bet, you can only win the part of the pot you actually paid into. The chips other players put in beyond your all-in are set aside into a side pot, contested by the players who could still cover it. One hand can produce several of these, stacked on top of each other. It is settled automatically, and each pot goes to the best hand among the players eligible for it.

• The pot is the payout: nothing is withheld from it and there is no rake.
• Blinds are posted by the two seats after the button, which moves each hand.
• An all-in for less than a call builds a side pot the short stack cannot win.
• At showdown every seat still in the hand shows; there is no muck.
• A split pot that does not divide evenly gives its odd chips to the seats nearest the button's left.

Those are the settings a fresh table opens with. A server can change them — the table’s own Rules panel is the authority on the table in front of you.