PHDREAM Texas Holdem Rules: Blinds, Flop, Turn & River

PHDREAM Texas Holdem Rules cover four betting rounds sandwiched between two blinds posting and a showdown. Two hole cards, five shared community cards revealed in stages, and the best five-card hand at the end — that structure holds for every hand, whatever the table.

Texas Holdem Rules: Blinds and Hole Cards

A hand starts before any cards are visible. The two players seated to the dealer’s left post the blinds, and every player then receives two hole cards face down.

Step	What happens
Small blind	Posted by the player immediately left of the dealer button
Big blind	Posted by the next player left, usually double the small blind
Hole cards	Two cards dealt face down to every player at the table

The blinds exist so a hand always has something in the pot to play for, since otherwise a player could fold every hand for free and wait indefinitely for a premium one.

Pre-Flop Betting

The first betting round happens with only the two hole cards visible to each player. Action starts with the player seated left of the big blind.

1. Each player in turn calls the big blind, raises above it, or folds.
2. Betting continues around the table until every player still in the hand has matched the current bet.
3. Players who fold take no further part in that hand.

Pre-flop decisions rest entirely on the two hole cards, since no community card has been dealt yet.

The Flop

Three community cards are dealt face up at once — the flop. These three cards are shared by every player still in the hand.

A new betting round follows, in the same calling, raising and folding pattern as pre-flop, starting with the first active player left of the dealer button rather than left of the big blind.

Card stage	Community cards on the table	Cards each player can use
Flop	3	5 (2 hole cards + 3 community)

The Turn

A fourth community card is dealt face up, called the turn. Every player now has six cards to build a hand from: two hole cards and four community cards.

Betting follows the same structure as the flop’s round. Bet sizes on many tables step up from this point on, since more information is on the table and more of the final hand is known.

Card stage	Community cards on the table	Cards each player can use
Turn	4	6 (2 hole cards + 4 community)

The River

A fifth and final community card is dealt face up — the river. All five community cards are now on the table, and every remaining player has the full seven cards — two hole cards plus five community cards — to build a hand from.

The last betting round of the hand follows the river, using the same order as the flop and the turn.

Card stage	Community cards on the table	Cards each player can use
River	5	7 (2 hole cards + 5 community)

The Showdown

If two or more players are still in the hand after the river’s betting round, the hand reaches a showdown.

1. Players reveal their hole cards in turn, typically starting with the last player to bet or raise.
2. Each player’s best five-card hand is built from any combination of their two hole cards and the five community cards.
3. The highest-ranked hand, by standard poker hand rankings, wins the pot.

A hand never reaches showdown if every player but one folds first — the last player standing wins the pot without showing their cards, at any point in the four rounds.

Texas Holdem Hand Order: Ranking Every Hand

The texas holdem hand order below runs from strongest to weakest. A higher hand on this table always beats a lower one, whatever the specific cards involved.

Rank	Hand	Example
1	Royal flush	10, J, Q, K, A, same suit
2	Straight flush	Five sequential cards, same suit
3	Four of a kind	Four cards of the same rank
4	Full house	Three of a kind plus a pair
5	Flush	Five cards of the same suit, any order
6	Straight	Five sequential cards, mixed suits
7	Three of a kind	Three cards of the same rank
8	Two pair	Two separate pairs
9	One pair	Two cards of the same rank
10	High card	No pair or better; the highest single card plays

Where two players hold the same hand type, the higher-ranking cards inside that hand break the tie — two pair with Kings beats two pair with Queens, for instance.

Playing Texas Hold’em at PHDREAM’s Live Casino

Texas Hold’em style tables sit inside PHDREAM live casino tables, behind the LIVE CASINO tab, alongside baccarat and blackjack.

1. Open LIVE CASINO and select a Hold’em style table.
2. Read the table’s rules panel for its blind sizes and betting limits.
3. Confirm your hole cards before the pre-flop betting round begins.
4. Follow the flop, turn and river in order, betting only what the table’s limits allow.

Pai gow poker runs a different structure entirely — two hands instead of one round of shared cards — covered in PHDREAM pai gow rules, and PHDREAM’s blackjack basic strategy chart covers the standard chart for the table game most likely to sit next to it.