It’s called “The Cadillac of Poker” for a reason. Texas Hold’em is by far the most popular way to play poker these days, thanks in large part to the World Series of Poker – and that industry-changing win by Chris Moneymaker at the 2003 WSOP Main Event. Moneymaker’s victory proved you don’t have to be a professional poker wizard to take home this sport’s most prestigious prize; you don’t even need to pay the $10,000 buy-in and entry fee, if you win your Main Event seat through a satellite tournament.
The rise of online poker in Canada may have been fuelled by the Moneymaker Era of the mid-Aughts, but Bodog Poker has been around even longer than that, giving players from Canada and across the Americas the best poker games on the web. You might be one of those players, and you might even be thinking about playing the WSOP this year. Whatever level of experience you’re at right now, Bodog has everything you need to master Texas Hold’em poker – whether it’s cash games or poker tournaments like the WSOP Main Event.
What is Texas Hold’em Poker?
Poker has been around for centuries. Texas Hold’em, however, is much newer on the scene, officially born in Robstown, Texas not long after the town was founded in 1907. Felton “Corky” McCorquodale is credited with introducing Hold’em to Las Vegas in 1963; McCorquodale and his fellow Texas “rounders,” including Doyle Brunson and Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston, were instrumental in bringing Hold’em to the masses.
The biggest reason these legendary players preferred Texas Hold’em rules was because of the betting structure. At the time, Five-Card Draw was the game of choice, but that variant has only two poker betting rounds – Hold’em has four: pre-flop, flop, turn, and river.
Pre-flop betting happens after you receive your two “hole” cards, face-down. Next comes the flop, after the dealer puts three “community” cards face up on the table. Then you have a fourth community card for the turn, and a fifth and last card on the river. As per the Texas Hold’em rules, you get to use any of your hole cards and the community cards to make your standard five-card poker hands.
Texas Hold’em can also be played using any of the three standard betting limits in poker: fixed-limit, pot-limit, and no-limit. The bigger bets in No-Limit Texas Hold’em proved to be the most popular among the rounders. They made No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) the game of choice for the WSOP Main Event, and the rest is history.
The WSOP and its Connection to Texas Hold’em
Today, when people think of poker, they’re almost certainly thinking about No-Limit Hold’em – and there’s a good chance they’re specifically thinking about the WSOP Main Event. But there was no Main Event at the first World Series of Poker in 1970, or any tournaments at all for that matter. Brunson, Preston and a handful of rounders played an extended mixed-game cash session at Binion’s Horseshoe, then voted for Johnny Moss as their champion.
WSOP organizer Jack Binion knew something had to change. The following year, they split up the mixed game into five “freezeout” tournaments (no re-buys or re-entries), with a No-Limit Texas Hold’em Main Event as their ultimate test of skill. Sure enough, Johnny Moss was again the winner – and he did it again in 1974.
It’s hard to imagine now, but Moss was one of just six players at the 1971 WSOP Main Event. Thanks to the success of the tournament format, that number grew to 16 for Moss’s third Main Event victory in 1974, then into the hundreds by the early ‘80s, and all the way up to 839 entrants for Moneymaker’s win in 2003.
Cue the poker boom. Greg Raymer had to outlast 2,575 other players to take the 2004 WSOP Main Event; Joe Hachem’s 2005 win saw 5,619 entrants, and Canada’s own Jamie Gold bagged a then-record $12 million in 2006 by surviving a field of 8,773. Now the NLHE Main Event is pulling in over 10,000 players, all hoping to win life-changing money in poker’s most famous tournament.
How to Play Texas Hold’em Poker at Bodog
Many of the big names you’ll see at the WSOP also play right here at Bodog Poker. Online poker is an incredibly valuable training tool for live players, letting you get in hundreds or even thousands of hands per hour compared to 30 or so at a live table. And you can win some serious money while you’re at it – if you’re good enough and the cards fall your way.
Most important of all, playing cash games and tournaments at Bodog is a lot of fun. It only takes a few minutes to get started. Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to sign up and play Texas Hold’em online at Bodog Poker.
1. Create your free Bodog account by filling out our short form.
2. Log in to our lobby at Bodog Poker, either by downloading our free poker client software to your computer, or directly through our web app using your smartphone, tablet or other Internet-enabled device.
3. Take a moment to explore our lobby and see all of the different poker games we have running. It’s a good idea at this point to try some Play Money games and make sure everything is working properly, but you can skip to the next step if you prefer.
4. Make your first deposit into your Bodog Poker account – and don’t forget to claim your 100% Poker Welcome Bonus for up to $1,000 in free cash.
5. Select any of the games you see running at Bodog Poker; cash games, multi-table tournaments (MTTs) and Sit & Go tournaments (SNGs) are all on the menu, at stakes ranging from pennies to thousands of dollars.
6. Take your seat at the table and start playing. If you’re playing cash poker at Bodog, you’ll be whisked instantly to your randomly-assigned seat at one of our anonymous tables. For MTTs, your game will begin at the scheduled time; for SNGs, your game will begin as soon as the required number of people have entered.
Texas Hold’em Cash Games on Bodog
Cash games were the original form of poker, and they’re still popular today – just look at all the different Texas Hold’em cash games running right now at Bodog. The table stakes range from 2c/5c all the way to $10/$20. Those numbers show you the size of the poker blinds, the two forced bets (small blind/big blind) that must take place at the start of every Hold’em hand. All you have to do to play NLHE cash games is buy a stack of chips and take your seat at the table. You can reload and keep playing if you lose your stack, and you can cash out at any time.
Texas Hold’em Tournaments on Bodog
The World Series of Poker lasts only three weeks; Bodog Poker tournaments are on the menu 24/7. We’ve got something for every bankroll, from exclusive Bodog freerolls to high-stakes poker tournaments like the Golden Spade Poker Open (GSPO) Main Event. Most of our daily tourneys are Hold’em games, with some Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo sprinkled in for good measure. You might not win $12 million like Jamie Gold did at the 2006 WSOP, but there’s plenty of money up for grabs every day at Bodog Poker, up to six figures at our annual poker festivals like the GSPO.
Texas Hold’em Strategy for Tournaments and Cash Games
Poker is a game of luck and skill, so if you want the best results at the poker table, you need a solid Texas Hold’em strategy. We’ve got a valuable series of articles here at Bodog Poker on cash game strategy, plus all of the poker tournament tips you need to get your game to the next level. But let’s get you started on the right foot by looking at three of the most important concepts in any kind of poker.
The Importance of Position in Texas Hold’em
Poker position can refer to your particular seat at the table, or it can mean whether you act first or last (or somewhere in between) during the betting round. From a strategic perspective, the first meaning applies mostly to pre-flop play; in general, the best early position strategy is to open only your strongest hands from “under the gun,” plus maybe one or two speculative hands like Seven-Six suited. Your opening range should usually expand from there as you get closer to the button.
Speaking of which, once you reach the post-flop stage, the player on the button always has late position advantage, since they’ll always be last to act. Texas Hold’em is a game of incomplete information, so it’s normally better to be the player in position, reacting to whatever the player out of position does – unlike chess, where White gets the advantage by going first.
When to Bluff and When to Fold
Poker bluffing is both an art and a science – mostly the latter when you play online at Bodog Poker. Thanks to the power of computers, we can use game theory to develop near-optimal Texas Hold’em strategies, mathematically modelling what the “optimal” bluff frequency and bet size should be for every situation you find yourself in at the table. That’s as long as you’re in the pot with a single opponent; multi-way pots are much harder to model, although we’re getting there.
Computers aside, your best bluffing hands are typically those which win you the most money when your opponent chooses not to fold. Pre-flop, that often means hands like the Seven-Six suited we just mentioned, although suited Broadway Aces will make higher-ranking straights and flushes than those smaller connectors. These are the kind of big made hands you’d rather be drawing to post-flop when you’re bluffing, or “semi-bluffing” to be precise.
Once you get into live poker at the WSOP, you’ll also have the opportunity to develop some live poker reads on your opponents, which will let you exploit their weaknesses by bluffing more (or less) often than the math would suggest. You can still do a limited form of this profiling at Bodog Poker by paying attention to the anonymous players around you while they’re at the table, but it’s even more important when you play live, especially against less experienced players who don’t realize they’re giving off tells.
Knowing when to fold is even more important than knowing when to bluff. They’re related, of course, but getting your fold strategy down pat is crucial when you’re a beginner. This will take some study if you want to be an expert; in the meantime, whenever in doubt, fold if checking isn’t an option.
Bankroll Management for Poker Players
Our third poker concept is the one so many experts get wrong – even (and sometimes especially) those old-school Texas rounders. You can’t win if you can’t play, and you can’t play if you’re broke, so if you want your burgeoning poker career to last, you need to employ a little poker bankroll management. It doesn’t have to be complicated; start by making sure you have at least 20 buy-ins for No-Limit Hold’em cash games, and 100 buy-ins (including the entry fee) for NLHE tournaments. Move down in stakes as required to help prevent your bankroll from reaching zero.
Why Bodog is the Best Place to Play Texas Hold’em in Canada
We’ve pretty much already covered everything that makes Bodog Poker the No. 1 stop for online poker in Canada and across the Americas: tons of cash games and tournaments, anonymous tables, generous poker bonuses, and all those other great Bodog Poker features. But the most important thing of all is the thousands poker fans like yourself who have chosen to play Texas Hold’em at Bodog. You’re the ones who make all of this possible. Thank you for reading, and thank you for playing with us.
Start Playing Texas Hold’em Poker Today
What’s that? You haven’t tried Texas Hold’em at Bodog Poker yet? Now’s the time to jump in, especially if you’re thinking about playing the WSOP. There’s no better way to train than to play poker online; our $1,000 Poker Welcome Bonus makes it a no-brainer. Follow those steps we listed above and sign up today, then jump right into battle at our cash tables, or maybe in one of our daily tournaments for real money prizes. All of these games and more are waiting for you at Bodog Poker – Canada’s home for the very best in online poker.