Rhett Butler: Hi my name is Rhett Butler. I am a professional poker player, I am here with Rick Rahim, Director, Founder of The Executive Poker Tour, which I play on and we are here to tell you about how to play No Limit Texas Hold them. We have discussed the flop, we have discussed the turn, we have discussed, what hands be what and now we are on the last possible card, the river card and we are back to the betting action and the betting action will start on me.
Rick Rahim: So, Rhett in the previous hand, you checked, I bet and you called again, because the dealer button is there and you and me, we are just left to dealer, you once again are in the bad situation of having to act first and having me, have the benefit of that information, so we will burn a card again, we will see the river which will be the last card, keep in mind that we are playing the best five cards each, so in the end we will able to use our two cards in combination with any three cards of the five on the board, or a lot of times, we may not use any of our cards and use all five cards on the board, or the last possibility is, I can use one of my cards with four of the cards on the board, but in the end, I have the option of seven cards here and figuring out how five of them would beat the best combination of your seven cards.
Rhett Butler: Exactly, now, it comes down to reading your opponent on the basis of the card, go ahead burn and turn.
Rick Rahim: Okay, so here is the burn and when he says turn, he means turn the card over but this is actually the river, this is the last community card and this will be the last round of betting, so at the end of this round of betting, somebody will have won the pot and the pot is all of the money in the middle plus whatever additional bets that might be placed or called.
Rhett Butler: Now, in this situation, I played for bluffing at the pot on the river, but I actually hit one of the best possible cards for me, it's a jack, so I am going to -- size of the pot, I want, I think and I want him to call me so I have to decide now in my mind, I would typically decide how much to put in the pot that he would actually call. So, in this case I would take my time count the chips down and there is roughly 20 chips and I would probably bet a little over half the pot, hoping that A, he didn't have a big hand to start with and B, he is going to call when I put in, so I would bet 12 chips and announce it before I put the money, and he had to put it all at once.
Rick Rahim: Okay, so Rhett being first to act has now said I have a hand I like, he has bet 12 chips into the pot, what that means is, the total amount of money I could possibly win will be all of the money in the pot, plus Rhett's 12 chips, but in order for me to win that, I have to call his bet of 12 chips, by calling his bet, I would simply say, I think I have a better hand, I want to see your cards and I will compare them to mine and we will figure out who has the best hand. I have two other options however, I could fold, by folding, I would simply discard my cards into the middle of the hand or the muck and I would be basically conceding the hand, I would say, I am not going to put any more of my money into the pot, I believe you have the best hand, you win.
By doing that, Rhett has no obligation to show me his cards and he can simply fold his cards, take the money and we would move on to the next hand. I do have one other option, Rhett has bet 12 chips, if I think I have a better hand than him or I decide that I can bluff him, I could re-raise him. So, for example, if he bet 12 chips, I could raise him, now by raising I have to bet at least 24 chips, in this case, I thought I had the best hand the whole way because starting off, I had an ace and another big card, I bet the turn and he called me and now he is betting the river and it tells me that, he is not so scared of me any more, so I think maybe one of these cards did catch up to him, I think he probably does have a pair and since I have just have an ace and a big card, I have decided I am not going to gamble any more and I am going to fold, by folding I don't have to show Rhett my cards, I simply show them to the camera for purposes of example and I can simply say fold, or I can just toss my cards into the muck, but the end result is that Rhett has won and he is entitled to take all of the money out of the pot including his initial bet, the hand is over and we move on to the next hand. In our next segment we will talk about the two types of Texas No Limit Hold em poker games that are typically played or seen on TV, Tournament play Vs. Cash or Ring games.
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