Texas Hold'em strategy data laboratory

Heads-up no-limit Hold’em

Texas Hold’em rules

If both players stay in, a Texas Hold'em hand goes from preflop (two private cards) to flop (three community cards), turn (one), river (one), then showdown. Each street has a betting round, including after the river.

01
Preflop

Two hole cards each

2
02
Flop

Three at once

3
03
Turn

Fourth card only

1
04
River

Fifth card only

1
05
Showdown

Best five of seven

5

A hand, step by step

Preflop: calling does not always end the round

The blinds are 1 / 2. The button has posted 1 and adds 1 to call. The big blind can still check or raise. If the big blind checks, deal the three-card flop.

Flop: a bet and a call

The pot starts at 100. One player bets 50 and the other calls 50: the pot is now 200, before any rake. With betting complete and both players still in, deal one turn card.

Can you bet after the river?

Yes. After the fifth and final community card (the river) is dealt, there is one last betting round. In this example both players check, so that round ends and they compare their best five-card hands at showdown. There is no betting after showdown and no sixth community card.

01

Heads-up positions and action order

  1. The button is also the small blind. Preflop, the button / small blind acts first.
  2. If the small blind merely completes to the big blind, the big blind still has a check-or-raise option; that call does not immediately end preflop.
  3. On the Flop, Turn, and River, the non-button / big blind acts first and the button acts last.
  4. The button swaps next hand, so blinds and action order swap as well.
02

When a betting round actually closes

  1. A player folds: the whole hand ends immediately.
  2. No wager: the street closes after every active player has checked.
  3. A wager exists: the street closes after every active player has had the right to respond and commitments are matched, or only all-in players remain.
  4. A call does not universally close a street; the heads-up small blind's preflop completion is the common exception.
03

Betting, raising, and all-in

  1. Wager-to means the actor's cumulative commitment on this street, not merely the chips added by this click.
  2. A full raise must at least match the previous full bet-or-raise increment and gives the opponent another response.
  3. A short all-in below a full raise normally does not reopen raising for a player who has already acted.
  4. When a call uses the entire remaining stack, it is an all-in call and the interface shows it as one action.
04

All-in runouts still advance street by street

When neither player can act, betting stops but board order does not change. An all-in on the Flop requests one Turn first, then one River after the Turn is confirmed. A preflop all-in requests the three-card Flop, then one Turn, then one River.

05

Current product boundary

Live-hand replay currently covers one heads-up no-limit Hold'em hand. It does not model multiway pots, side pots, rake, tournament ICM, insurance, multiple runouts, or room-specific rules. Inputs outside this scope must not be treated as supported real-table behavior.