Texas hold 'em (also hold'em, holdem) is the most popular poker variant played in casinos in the United States. Hold'em is a community card game where each player may use any combination of the five community cards and their own two hole cards to make a poker hand, in contrast to poker games like stud or draw where each player holds a separate individual hand.
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 poker player only starts with two cards and the remaining poker cards are shared, it presents an opportune game for strategic analysis (including mathematical analysis). Hold 'em's simplicity and popularity has 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.
