So you are new to poker, but still want to play with the flourish of an Amarillo Slim. Not a problem if the game you wish to master happens to be Texas Hold’em! With little bit of concentration, with a modicum of ingenuity, learning the game is easy and deceptively simple. Typically played with nine or ten players to a table, Texas hold’em is the fastest growing poker game in the world. It is faster and more action-packed than stud or Omaha High. In fact this vastly entertaining variation of traditional poker happens to be the one that is used to determine the world champion at the World Series of Poker held yearly in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Like any sport, the best way to learn poker is to play it. There is always a chance for a tyro to lose lot of money at the real money tables. So the preferred way to practice poker is by honing your skills at the play money tables that all the online poker sites these days offer. Online play money games enjoy great popularity and why not, they are FREE. You can play all the poker you want with people from around the world and that too without having to risk a nickel or a dime. And once you have honed your skills to a sufficient degree then you can move upwards to try your hand at the real money tables.

There is no limit to what you can win playing online. The speed in which poker is played online is a lot faster than real life casino games. You can easily play over 100 hands an hour at an online table. Anyway, here is quick glance at some of the basics of Texas hold’em:

1. The first two players to the left of the dealer position place blind bets before cards are dealt. These bets are then used instead of antes to stimulate action. The betting amount can vary, but it is usual for a $10-$20 hold'em game to have blinds in the range of $5 and $10.

2. Once the bets are placed the dealer shuffles a complete deck of 52 playing cards. From this shuffled deck each player is dealt two cards face down. These cards are called the hole or pocket cards.

3. This is followed by another round of betting beginning with the guy who sits left of the two who posted the blind bets earlier. This round of betting is usually referred to by the term pre-flop. The amount a player can bet depends on the nature of the game.

4. In the tradition followed by most games of poker, the players are at liberty to check, raise, or fold.

5. When the new round of betting is finished, the dealer will discard the top card, called the burn card, in the deck. This is basically done to prevent cheating.

6. The next three cards in the deck are then flipped face open on the table by the dealer. These three cards, called the flop, are communal cards, which anyone can use in combination with their two pocket cards to form a poker hand.

7. From here another round of betting begins starting with the player to the left of the dealer.

8. After this round of betting concludes, the dealer burns another card in the deck and flips one more onto the table. This is called the turn card, which players can use to form a five-card poker hand.

9. The player to the left of the dealer begins another round of betting. In many types of games, this is where the bet size doubles.

10. The dealer now burns yet another card and places a final card face up on the table. This is called the river. There are now five cards on the table, which the players can now use in conjunction with the two cards in their pocket to form a five-card poker hand.

11. After this there is one final round of betting starting with the player to the left of the dealer.

12. From here all of the players remaining in the game begin to reveal their hands. The process of revealing, called the showdown, always begins with the player to the left of the last player to call. Players use a combination of their pocket cards and the community cards to form a poker hand.

13. The player who can display the best hand wins! But there are cases where players with equal hands share the winnings.

Those were the very basics of a vastly entertaining form of poker, Texas hold’em. Though there are many variants of hold’em out there, once you have understood the basics of one of them, mastering the variants is a piece of cake. Thankfully, there are enough poker rooms where you can hone your skills for free. The only way to master this game is to play, play and play. So go ahead and play all you want for free, and when you are ready the sky is the limit to what you can win!