Texas Hold'em is the most popular poker variation in the world and it can be found at every poker site out there. If you’re looking for the best Texas Hold'em poker sites, this page is just for you. The following online poker sites are considered by poker players to be the best places to play Texas Hold'em poker.

1. Best Online Texas Holdem
2. Top Rated Texas Holdem Sites
3. Most Popular Texas Holdem Site

Find list of top 10 online poker sites for 2020. Don't play poker online until you have checked out our listing of the top ten online poker sites. Best US Online Poker Sites: the Top 11 American Card Rooms Best Online Poker Sites. The cash games range from micro stakes no limit Texas Holdem up to $2,000 buy-in pot limit Omaha. They also have a variant of fast-fold poker, dubbed 'Zone Poker' where players can play very high-paced games with no waiting for blinds to begin and the ability.

Best Online Texas Holdem

These Texas Hold'em poker rooms are ranked according to their overall quality of games, traffic levels, and variety of stakes, specifically for Texas Hold'em players. There’s always room for a little debate but these poker sites are generally recognized as the top Texas Hold'em poker sites. Feel free to visit any or all of these sites to help you choose the poker site that best fits your needs.

Poker Sites Offering Real Money Hold'em Cash Games

What Makes a Great Texas Hold'em Poker Site?

We must admit, it was kind of tough to pick only three Texas Hold'em sites for this page. There are literally hundreds of online poker sites out there, and every single one of them offers Texas Hold'em games in one form or another. With that in mind, here are the criteria we used for picking the best poker sites for Hold'em games:

• Significant Player Traffic. This is the most important aspect - you need players to play against. All of the sites on this page have enough players online around the clock to spread at least mid-stakes cash games and SNGs up to the $50 level. During peak hours you can play high stakes Hold'em games at any of the sites on this list.
• Easy to Beat Competition. The Hold'em sites on this list are (other than Full Tilt) some of the weakest poker sites online. This means that you will have an easier time making money than if you were playing at a site like PokerStars which has much stiffer competition. In fact, by switching from PokerStars to Ultimate Bet you could reasonably expect to increase your ROI without changing anything about your strategy.
• Cash Games, MTTs, and SNGs. This is another important aspect - you should be able to play Hold'em cash games, tournaments, and sit and gos at the top Texas Hold'em sites. All of the sites on this list offer all three.

Any of the poker sites on this page are a great choice for Texas Hold'em players. If you wish to play Texas Hold'em online but don't know how to play the game yet, read on for the full rules of Texas Hold'em.

How to Play Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold'em is played as a community card game. In other words, some of the cards are dealt on the table and are shared by all the players in the game. In Texas Hold'em, each player receives two hole cards and may combine those cards with any of the five community cards to form the best possible five card poker hand. The player with the best hand wins the pot.

The Blinds

The blind are mandatory bets that are paid by two players at the beginning of each hand. The player to the left of the dealer must pay the small blind, which is equal to half of one minimum bet. The player to the left of that person must pay the big blind, which is equal to one full minimum bet.

Many Texas Hold'em games use a full time dealer so that the players don’t have to pass the deck around table. In these games, a small disc is used to represent the position of the dealer each hand. That disc is called the “dealer’s button.”

The Deal

After the blinds are paid, the dealer deals two cards face down to each player. These cards are dealt one at a time, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer.

Preflop Betting Round

This betting round begins with the player to the left of the blinds. The players now take turns calling, folding and raising until each player has either matched the current bet or folded.

The Flop

The dealer now places three cards face up in the middle of the table. These cards are shared by all the players at the table. Another round of betting begins but this time the first player to the left of the dealer begins the betting round. The players may check, bet, raise and fold.

The Turn

One card is dealt face up in the middle of the table. This is the fourth community card. The players now have a betting round that begins with the first player to the left of the dealer.

The River

One more card is dealt face up in the middle of the table. This card is the fifth and last community card. One more round of betting takes place, beginning with the first player to the left of the dealer.

After this betting round, the remaining players may now reveal their hands. The player with the best five card poker hand, using any combination of his hole cards and the community cards, wins the pot.

Further Texas Hold'em Reading

• Now that you know the rules of Texas Hold'em (as well as all of the best poker sites for playing Hold'em), check out our advanced strategy guide for No Limit Hold'em to learn how to beat the online games.
• My friend Greg runs ThePokerBank.com, which in my opinion is the best Texas Hold'em-specific site online. He has dozens of Texas Hold'em strategy articles as well has his picks for the best Texas Hold'em poker sites.

What is Texas Hold’em?

Texas Hold’em is the single most popular poker game in the world. Although it wasn’t until the 2000s that No-Limit Texas Hold’em really took off, it’s a game that dates all the way back to the early 1900s.

Texas Hold’em differs from many of the other poker games like Seven-Card Stud and Five-Card Draw because it features community cards, which help mitigate the need to count cards.

You also draw only two cards as your starting 'hole cards,' making the game even more accessible to new poker players. Poker legend Doyle Brunson once referred to No-Limit Hold’em as the “Cadillac” of poker and it’s easy to see why.

The game is simple to learn and offers a unique combination of skill and luck, making for endlessly exciting game scenarios and lots of action.

Top Rated Texas Holdem Sites

How is Texas Hold'em Played?

Texas Hold’em is a community-card poker game that typically takes place over one table with 2-10 players. Every player is dealt two cards face down, which can then be combined with the following five cards dealt out on the board to create the best five-card poker hand.

Players do not have to have the best hand to win, however, as they can also win by bluffing their opponent out of a hand with a bet.

For one full hand of Texas Hold'em there can be up to four separate betting rounds - after the deal, after the flop (the first three cards are dealt to the board and called the 'Flop'), after the 'turn' card is dealt (fourth street) and after the 'river' card (fifth street) is dealt.

Players have the option of checking, calling, betting, raising or folding in every round, depending on the action in front of them and the order of player around the table.

Texas Hold’em is also very much a 'position-based' game, which means there is an order of play, a strategy to how you should play in each position in relation to the dealer and and two forced bets to start the action off every round.

These are called the 'small blind' and the 'big blind' (typically twice the small blind), and must be put into the pot before the hand. These positions rotate around the table, so you will need to put in one small blind and one big blind over the course of a full orbit of hands around the table.

Try our Beginner's Guide to Getting Started in Texas Hold'em to if you need some help to get going..

Why is Texas Hold’em So Popular?

Start playing online poker at the best poker sites and you’ll quickly find that 80% or more of all of the action at the tables is in No-Limit Texas Hold’em.

There are a lot of reasons why, but first among them is likely the ease of learning how to play and the massive amount of television exposure Texas Hold'em has got in the the last 6-8 years.

Texas Hold'em also works especially well online as it’s generally faster than most of the draw games and it’s easier to play with several tables open at once.

Perhaps the best element, though, is that new players are always getting into the game because it’s so simple to learn, which means competition is significantly less difficult than some of the other more specialized games.

These days Pot-Limit Omaha – the four-card version of Hold’em – is starting to gain momentum but it’s doubtful it will ever be nearly as popular as Hold’em.

What Beats What in Texas Hold'em?

See the complete hand rankings in our Poker Hand Evaluation page.

Most Popular Texas Holdem Site

How to Make Your Texas Hold'em Hand

The rules of making your best hand in Texas Holdem are simple:

You always have to you use exactly five cards (out of seven that are dealt - two just to you and five in the middle for everyone) but you can use any combination of cards from your hand or the board cards.

If the best five-card hand (go back to the poker hand rankings if you're unsure) you can make is with all five cards on the board, that's your final hand.

You can also use just one hole card from your hand and four from the board, or two from your hand and three from the board.

Basic No-Limit Hold’em Terms

Button: Nickname for the player acting as the dealer in current hand, or the name for the physical dealer button used to denote the current dealer.

Blinds: Short for 'blind bets,' these are the forced bets made before the cards are dealt. In Hold'em, blinds take the place of the classic “ante” that’s found in Seven-Card Stud.

Burn Card: The card dealt facedown before any community card is dealt.

Check: Similar to a call, but no money is bet. If there is no bet or raise, the next player to act may check.

Fish or Donkey: A generally bad player

Fifth Street: See River.

Flop: The first three community cards dealt.

Fourth Street: See Turn.

Pre-flop: Anything that occurs before the flop is dealt is pre-flop.

River: The final (5th) community card dealt; also known as fifth street.

Showdown: When players reveal their hands to discover the pot's winner.

Turn: The fourth community card dealt; also known as fourth street.

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Texas Holdem Game

Most people who play Texas Hold'em want to get better at it. Even those who play Texas Holdem online purely for recreation usually have more fun if they are winning. Becoming a Texas hold’em master will take some hard work and innate talent, but there are a few things you can do right away to start getting better:

1. Stop Playing So Many Hands

When newbie poker players start playing Texas holdem poker on the web, their most common mistake is playing too many starting hands. In other words they 'limp in' (putting in the same amount as the big blind) or they call too many bets before the flop with hands that are too weak.

This is a common symptom in live poker too, but the impatience that characterizes web visitors in general probably affects web based poker players as well. As a consequence, when you play online poker on the web, it’s even more important than usual to make a list of starting hands that you are “allowed” to play.

For example, make a copy of a simple Texas Holdem starting-hand strategy and keep it beside the computer when you play your first few hundred hands or so. As a general rule, if you start out with the best hand, you are more likely to end up with the best hand.

If you play any two cards with the hopes of flopping something good, you will often make the second-best hand at best or nothing at all. This will result in you paying off your opponents far too much. This is true in all poker variations but especially in Texas hold em games.

Even if you don't make any hands, your chips will bleed away since you will pay for a lot of missed flops and not win enough when you finally hit. At the best online Texas holdem sites there are always people waiting for fish to swim in and play any two cards. You want to be one of the sharks waiting and not the fish.

2. Try Second Level Thinking

Don’t consider your hand in a vacuum. Sure you have a flush, but there’s a high pair on the board and one of your opponents is betting strongly. You have to consider that he may have a full house.

Alternatively, if a player raised before the flop and the flop comes with three low cards, you have to consider the possibility that he was betting high cards and missed, even if your hand is not that strong.

Many new Texas hold em players focus too much on what they have and not what they have in relation to their opponents. If you often think “I have a [insert hand] so I have to call,” and then lose, you might want to start analyzing your opponents’ possible holdings a little more.

3. Try Third Level Thinking

In online Texas Hold'em poker, once you’re thinking about what your opponent has, try thinking about what your opponent may think you have. This seems a little tricky, but just try to put yourself in your opponent’s shoes and try to imagine what you might conclude about the hand if you were in his seat.

In doing so, you will be able to make good value bets that your opponents might pay off and get rid of hands that look strong but are beat.

4. Find Your Comfort Level

To play your best Texas Holdem online, you should be playing at stakes that are not so high that you are afraid to make the moves you need to make, but not so low that you play carelessly.

If you’re not sure, err on the side of playing lower stakes. You can always move up if you’re convinced that you are not being challenged at your current level. Before you decide where to play, compare different poker site reviews to make sure that you find a poker site offering action at your preferred limit.

5. Analyze Your Play

This is easier to do in online poker with downloaded hand histories, but you can do it in live play too. Go over your hands and think about what you did right and what you did wrong, and how that affected your results.

If you pinpoint a real error, try to correct it mentally before your next session. All top texas holdem sites allow you to view all your played hands, and most of them give you statistics on your play – how often you fold, call and bet etc.

Use this information to your advantage. It can drastically improve your game, and improve your chances of building a bankroll from your first poker deposit.

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Texas Holdem Poker

Texas Holdem is a poker success story without comparison. From being a fairly small game only played by old-school Texas gamblers, it’s now played by millions of people online and offline all around the world.

In our toplist to the left we rate online poker sites based on the Texas Hold’em games they offer. Poker Junkie’s editors and visitors have rated the big Texas Holdem poker sites and guide you to the best ones in this category.

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