Poker Tournaments

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.

A straddle bet is an optional and voluntary blind bet made by a player after posting the small and big blinds, but before cards are dealt. Straddles are typically used only in cash games played with fixed blind structures. Straddles are normally not permitted in tournament formats. The purpose of a straddle is to "buy" the privilege of last action, which on the first round with blinds is normally the player in the big blind. A straddle or sleeper blind may count as a raise towards the maximum number of raises allowed, or it may count separately; in the latter case this raises the maximum total bet of the first round. Straddling is permitted in Las Vegas but is illegal in Atlantic City due to differences in state and local laws.