How To Shuffle And Deal In Texas Hold'Em

And It All Began With A Shuffle And A Dealt Card...

Do you want to play poker like a veteran? Do you want to learn how to play Texas Hold'em? Do you want to play any type of card game at all? You DO ?!? Well, in that case you want to learn how to shuffle and deal a deck of cards properly.

Let's leave the fancy stuff for the professional dealers. We are here to summarize the basics of poker shuffling and dealing. Face it, if you do become a great Hold'em player, shuffling and dealing wouldn't be any of your concern. BUT until you become a professional you may end up in the position of a dealer, that's why we are going to try and teach you the basics.

For the moment forget what you have watched on TV. If your intentions are to become a Pro dealer then we suggest that you find other specialized books.

Shuffling

When it comes to learning how to shuffle it is most difficult and troublesome to learn it through a book or any kind of written text. So we are just going to give you some basic instructions and you should do your best as far as technique is concerned.

Heck, you might not even want to be a card magician and that's not wrong at all as being a virtuoso has got nothing to do with playing poker. What's important is that you do shuffle the cards thoroughly, and be careful not to expose any cards to anyone including the bottom card (no not even yourself!).

So, the first thing a real dealer might do is gather the cards in a big pile (face down of course) and mix them all around as randomly as humanly possible. At that point the dealer should gather them all together, and cut the cards, while making sure that no cards are exposed. Now the time has come to do our best in shuffling the cards.

After a thorough shuffle you might try and use some other shuffling techniques where cards are basically pulled from the bottom/middle of the deck, and put on top. While doing so this be mindful not to expose any cards to the players.

This can be done several time just to make sure that the deck is properly randomized. At the end you might want to give the cards one final cut before begin dealing.

When dealing texas holdem at home, you may wish to skip the fancy techniques, and just shuffle the cards. This is fine, but just be sure to shuffle them at least 5-10 times while ensuring that no one can see them, and then perhaps give the deck a cut before you deal.

Dealing Texas Hold'em

Before dealing out the cards, it is customary to "burn" a card (to put a card aside from the deck face down into what will be called a "muck" pile)

After all the blinds are set, each player is then dealt two cards face down clockwise starting with the person to the left of the dealer. While the betting round is commencing, the dealers job will be to move all folded cards into the muck pile. Once the betting process is complete, the dealer then moves all the chips at the center of the table forming a pile but making sure not to splash the stacks.

In turn comes time for the flop -the dealer once again burns a card, and then places three cards, face up, on the table making sure that they are visible to all the players. Another betting round commences.

Second comes the "Turn". The dealer in turn burns a card, and places another card face up on the table. The third betting round takes place.

Last comes the "River". The dealer burns a card again, and places the fifth and final card face up on the table. After this final round of betting comes the showdown, when the winner being awarded the pot.

When playing at home and a regular dealer can't be assigned the player on the left of the old dealer becomes the new dealer for the next hand.