Texas Hold'em
Poker in Red County is no-limit Texas Hold'em at a table with up to eight seats, played for real cash. The screen does the dealing and the maths for you, so this guide is about the game itself: what the cards mean, how a hand plays out and what your choices are.
Walk up to a poker table and use /poker join. A label above each table shows its blinds and buy-in range. You're seated in the free chair nearest to you and your camera moves to the table.
Each hand you're dealt two private cards (your hole cards). Five more are dealt face up in the middle over the course of the hand (the board), and they're shared by everyone. Your hand is the best five cards you can make from those seven, using both of your own, one of them or neither.
Here the player has A♥ K♥ and the board holds three more hearts, so they make a flush: A♥ K♥ Q♥ 5♥ 2♥, ace high. The other two board cards don't matter.
You never have to reach showdown. Betting is how you represent a strong hand, so a player who bets big enough can make everyone fold and take the pot without anyone seeing a card.
A dealer button (shown as [D] next to a name) moves one seat clockwise every hand, so nobody keeps the best position. Without a bet to react to there'd be nothing to play for, so the two seats after the button are forced to post blinds:
The small blind [SB] posts half a bet and the big blind [BB] posts a full one. The big blind is the minimum bet for the table, so a $5/$10 table has a $10 big blind. With only two players, the button is the small blind and acts first before the flop.
The board builds up in three steps: three cards, then one, then one. A card is also burned (thrown away unseen) before each, as in a real casino.
When it's your turn the pointer comes up and you can click a button or use the commands below. Which options you get depends on whether anyone has bet yet:
| Option | What it means |
|---|---|
| Fold | Throw your hand away and sit out the rest of this one. Anything you've already put in stays in the pot. |
| Check | Pass without betting. Only possible when nobody has bet this round (or you're the big blind and nobody raised). |
| Call | Match the current bet to stay in. The button shows exactly how much it will cost. |
| Bet / Raise | Put in more. If nobody has bet it's a bet; if someone has, it's a raise and everyone else must now match you or fold. |
| All-in | Put in every chip you have. You can't be forced out of a hand for being unable to afford a bet, you simply go all-in for what you have. |
Clicking RAISE opens a small panel to choose the amount. Use - and + to step it, MIN for the smallest legal raise, 1/2 or POT for half or the whole of the pot, then confirm. The amount you pick is what your total bet for the round becomes.
- A raise must be at least as big as the previous bet or raise. With a $10 bet, the smallest raise takes it to $20.
- You can always go all-in, even for less than a full raise.
- A short all-in that isn't a full raise doesn't reopen the betting for players who have already acted. They can only call or fold.
Suits don't rank against each other. When two players have the same type of hand, the higher cards win, for example a pair of kings beats a pair of tens. If that's level too, the next-highest card (the kicker) decides.
If you go all-in with fewer chips than your opponents, you can only win from each of them as much as you put in. Anything they bet on top goes into a side pot that you aren't part of. The game works all of this out for you at showdown. So a short stack can win the main pot with the best hand, and the bigger stacks fight over the rest between themselves.
If two or more players have exactly the same five-card hand, they split the pot equally. Any odd chip that can't be divided goes to the winner closest to the left of the dealer button.
Hands are only revealed at showdown, and only for players still in the hand. If you fold, nobody sees your cards, and if everyone else folds to you, you win without showing anything. The game announces each revealed hand and what it makes in chat.
If you lose your whole stack you're stood up before the next hand and told to /poker join again if you want to buy back in. If you'd rather top up before that happens, /poker rebuy works between hands, as long as it doesn't take you over the table's maximum buy-in.
/poker join [buy-in]Sit at the nearest table (within 3 metres). Your cash becomes chips. Leave the amount off for the standard 100 big blinds./poker leaveStand up and take your chips back as cash. If you're mid-hand, you fold first./poker rebuy [amount]Add chips between hands, up to the table maximum./poker statusTable info, who is seated with what, your cards and the board, in chat./poker mouseBrings the clickable buttons back if you pressed ESC to hide them./poker viewSwitch between the top-down camera and the low seated camera./pcheck /pcall /pfoldCheck, call, or fold on your turn. (/poker check, /poker call and /poker fold also work.)/praise [amount]Bet or raise. The number is the TOTAL you want to have in for the street, not the extra amount. (/poker raise also works.)/pallinPush all your remaining chips in.