Dealing

Deal a Hand of Texas Hold’em – Start to Finish

Dealing a hand of Texas Hold’em is fairly simple and pretty much anyone can do it well enough to take their turn to deal if playing a Texas Hold ‘Em game at home with some friends.

This article will walk you through the important things you need to do in order to properly deal Texas Hold’em, from the start of the hand through the conclusion. This will only be a brief overview of how to deal Texas Hold’em, covering the basics of what to do.

If you read and practice this page you will be able to deal a hand of poker and not look like a complete rookie when it is your turn to deal to those friends, however if you are looking to deal Texas Hold’em for money then you will benefit greatly from the home based Texas Hold’em dealing course.

How To Deal Texas Hold’em

From a Hold’em dealer perspective, the hand starts with the shuffle and concludes with awarding the pot to the winner. In between you have to give everyone their cards, ensure all bets make it into the pot, and deal the board the flop, turn, and river when appropriate. It’s fairly simple to do, making Texas Hold’em an easy game to deal.

In a nutshell, here are the steps to deal a hand of Hold’em. Let’s take a look at this short list of “your job” as dealer, and then we’ll talk about each step in detail.

• Shuffle
• Riffle
• Card Distribution
• Collect Bets (repeated each round)
• Deal community cards
• Award pot to winner

Shuffling –
Shuffling is the random mixing of the cards so each hand is new. It begins with the scramble aka the “wash” and concludes with the cutting of the deck. To wash the deck, you place all the cards face down on the table and mix them by spreading them all around in a circular / random pattern. In casinos the dealers quickly scramble every hand, however if you are dealing in an amateur league or home game with friends, or a pass the deal game you probably will not scramble every hand. Only every 10 hands or if a player requests it. The scramble is simple and anyone can do it. The next step in shuffling the deck is called the riffle.

Riffle –
This actually goes with the shuffle. This is when you split the cards in half and then mix them together by placing the corners of each half together, lifting and releasing so the cards from each half intermingle randomly, it makes the ‘riffling’ sound. Riffle three times minimum each hand, but not much more. In the local poker league I play in, the dealers riffle three times only to keep the game moving swiftly. The Cut is the final step and this is where you place the shuffled deck on the table and then one of the player cuts the deck in half, moving the bottom to the top.

There is a pretty good chance you already know how to shuffle and riffle. But just in case…

Card Distribution –
This is the dealing of cards to the other players, in Texas Hold’em, where each player gets two cards face down to begin the hand and you start with the top card on the deck. Starting with the small blind and working clockwise, deal each player 1 card in order and then repeat so that all players have 2 face down cards. The player on the button should receive the last card.

Collect Bets –
You will do this at the conclusion of each round and form the pot. Gather the bets from in front of the players and form them together into the pot. Typically you’ll put this in front of and to the left of where you place the flop (which is directly in front of you).

Make sure each person still in the hand has paid the appropriate bet amount before collecting them all together, however if you are dealing Hold’em with friends in a friendly home game when it is your time to deal then it’s probably not your sole responsibility. You’ll probably take turns dealing, and you can take this from experience – among a table of friends, everyone is watching the betting action and nobody will be shy about calling out anyone that does not play the proper amount.

However if you are the full time dealer then it is your responsibility to create and protect the pot meaning that it is accurate and all bets are properly accounted for. You will collect bets and add them to the pot at the end of each round, pre-flop, post-flop betting, after the turn betting and after the river betting.

Deal Community Cards –
This is the dealing of the flop, turn and river which are the face up community cards shared by all players. After the initial round of betting is over, it is time to deal the flop. Burn 1 card by placing it face down and then deal the next three cards face up on the table, this is the flop.

After the flop betting is over, the turn is dealt. You will burn 1 card and deal 1 card face up. This is the turn card. After the turn betting is over, the river is dealt. Burn 1 card and deal 1 card face up. This is the river card and concludes dealing the Texas Hold’em community cards.

Award Pot to Winner –
This is the culmination of the hand. Push the pot towards the person who won the hand, they will collect it and add it to their stack. At this point you have dealt a hand of Texas Hold’em poker! There is a whole lot more that goes into dealing Texas Hold’em that the brief overview listed above.

This is what the table will look like with the flop, the turn, and the river all dealt out and all wagers placed. *Note – If playing with a group of friends, you may or may not have a “dealer hand” dealt out.

Casino Texas Hold’em Dealing

If you want to deal Texas Hold’em in a casino, or even in a private game for tips, then you are going to need to know the right way to deal Texas Hold’em. You will need to know how to shuffle, pitch and deal cards like a pro. To deal in one of these games can be really lucrative with players tipping a dollar or two from virtually every hand of poker you deal. That can add up to a lot of money for a few hours work, but you will need to know how to deal poker like a pro. There are tons of techniques and how-to’s to learn to deal Texas Hold’em poker as if you are a casino dealer, such as,

• How to shuffle
• How to riffle cards like a casino dealer
• Tips for pitching the cards to the players
• Handling mis-deals
• How to cut chips
• How to manage the betting and flow of the game
• How to manage the table, where to best put the pot, the muck, the board cards, the burn cards
• Managing the flow of the game and who does what
• The exact shuffle sequence just how the casinos require dealers to do it
• Rules for interacting with players
• Rules for managing the pot, the muck, the board cards, the deck
• And even more

If you are interested in becoming a professional dealer with Texas Hold’em then purchase the Internets only home based Texas Hold’em dealing course and learn from a Poker Dealer who dealt for Bellagio for many years.

If you are interested in dealing Texas Hold’em for a casino or in a local cash game (for tips) then we highly recommend this home based Texas Hold’em dealing course. It will easily pay for itself in the first night or so. If you have a specific Texas Hold’em rules question or a tournament question, you can read through the home poker tourney.