Texas Hold'em Poker rules and how to play

Texas Hold'em Poker modes

• Play vs CPU (CPU対戦): play against 1–3 CPUs (three strength levels)
• Random Match (ランダムマッチ): join a table online
• Room Match (ルーム対戦): join the same table as your friends using a room ID

Basic rules of Texas Hold'em Poker

• Each player is dealt two cards (hole cards), and up to five shared cards (community cards) are revealed on the table.
• The game goes through preflop, the flop (3 cards revealed), the turn (the 4th card) and the river (the 5th card), with a betting round at each stage.
• In each round, you can check, bet, call, raise, fold or go all in.
• The players left at the end compare the five-card hands they make from their hole cards and the community cards, and the strongest hand wins the pot.
• From strongest to weakest, the hands are: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and high card.

How to play on Asobi Lounge

• On your turn, buttons for the actions you can take appear. You choose the amount of a raise yourself.
• Chips exist only in the game and have nothing to do with cash.
• At online tables, while waiting, the host can set the starting chips (1,000 by default), the small blind (10 by default; the big blind is twice that), the time limit (15–60 seconds) and how often the blinds go up (never, or every 5, 10 or 15 hands).

How the CPU works and its strength levels

The CPU decides using only its own hand, the revealed community cards and the bets so far. It deals out the cards it cannot see at random many times to estimate how often its hand wins, then compares the chips needed to call with the size of the pot. It does not look at other players' hands.

• Easy: plays without caring much about its hand. A good opponent for beginners.
• Normal: decides by looking at its chance of winning and the size of the pot.
• Hard: estimates its chance of winning in detail, and also bluffs and slow-plays (bets modestly on purpose with a strong hand).

Odds for your first two cards

There are 1,326 ways to deal two cards from 52. Of these, 78 are two cards of the same rank (a pocket pair), about 5.9%, and 6 are two aces, about 0.45% (1 in 221). Your first two cards are the same suit in 312 ways, about 23.5%. Strong starting hands rarely come, so knowing when to fold a weak hand matters.

Tips

• Do not play every hand. Play aggressively with strong hands, and fold weak ones to keep your losses down.
• Read the strength of other players' hands from the way they bet.
• Where you sit also affects strategy. Seats that act later have the advantage, because you can see what others do before you decide.
• When the chips needed to call are small compared with the pot, it can be worth calling even if your chances of winning are on the low side.

Frequently asked questions

Do I bet money?

No. Chips exist only in the game and cannot be exchanged for cash or prizes.

Can I play alone?

Yes. You can play against 1–3 CPUs. The CPU decides using only its own hand and the revealed community cards, and does not look at other players' hands.

I don't know the order of the hands.

The basic rules above list the hands from strongest to weakest. Our articles (in Japanese) also explain how to tell the hands apart and basic strategy.

Is Texas Hold'em Poker free to play?

Yes, it costs nothing. Games against the CPU and solo modes work right away without signing in. Online play (random matches and private rooms) and saving stats or leaderboard scores require signing in with a Google account. To play with a friend, your friend also needs to create an account and register as your friend.

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