How to Deal Poker at Home: The Home Game Dealer's Guide

Almost every fight at a home poker game starts with the dealer. A card flips over on the deal, the wrong person acts first, or the flop comes out before everyone's done betting. So, by the end of this video, you'll be able to deal a full hand of Texas Hold'em from start to finish, and you'll know the official fix for each of those mistakes, plus one rule that people who've played for years still get backwards. >> [music] >> First, who deals? At most home games, nobody deals all night. The deal moves around the table, and a little disc called the dealer button shows whose turn it is. To decide where it starts, deal one card face up to everybody. High card gets the button, and if two people tie, the suit breaks it. Spades, then hearts, then diamonds, then clubs. Now, look to the left of the button. That player puts in the small blind, and the next player puts in the big blind, which is usually twice as much. Those chips go in before anyone sees a card, so there's always something in the middle to play for, and after every hand, the button moves one seat to the left, so everybody pays the blinds, and everybody gets the best seat once per round. Before the first card comes the shuffle, and the official version runs in the same order every time. Start with a wash, which means spreading the cards face down and mixing them around on the felt, so the last hand's cards don't stay clumped together. Then riffle, riffle, strip a few chunks off the top, and riffle one more time, and keep the deck low and close to the table because a deck held up at eye level is a deck the player next to you can read. Now, the mistake almost every home dealer makes is flashing the bottom card. If anybody sees it, they know one card that's not coming, and in a closed hand, that matters. So, keep the deck flat, and if you've got a spare joker or a plastic cut card, put it on the bottom. Then offer the deck to the player on your right to cut, and you're ready to deal. The first card goes to the player on your left, the small blind. Deal one card at a time, face down and clockwise, and the button gets the last one. Then go around a second time, so everyone ends up with two, and slide the cards low across the felt instead of tossing them, because a card that flies up in the air is a card that flips over. And if you deal one extra card by accident, say the first player ends up with three, that extra card goes back on top of the deck and becomes the first burn card. Two extra cards is a misdeal. And that's the first argument. A card flips face up on the deal, so who gets it? It depends on which card it was. If it's the first or second card off the deck, it's a misdeal, so you gather everything up, shuffle, and deal again. If it's any other card, you keep dealing. That player can't keep it, so once the deal is done, they get the next card off the top, and the flipped card becomes the first burn card. But if two cards get flipped, it's a misdeal again, and you start over. The other mistake that sends everyone back is dealing the first card to the wrong seat. If it goes to the big blind instead of the small blind, that's a misdeal, too. The catch is timing. Once two players have acted on their hands, it's too late to call a misdeal, and the hand plays on as it is. So if you see it, say it right away. Now, the betting and the mix-up that comes up at almost every first game, who goes first? Before the flop, it's the player to the left of the big blind. The blinds already have chips in, so they get to act last. But after the flop, the turn, and the river, it's the first player still in the hand to the left of the button. So the person who went first before the flop usually isn't the person who goes first after it, and that's exactly where people start jumping in out of turn. When the betting's done, you deal the board. Burn one card face down, then turn three cards face up at the same time. That's the flop. Another round of betting, then burn one and turn one. That's the turn. One more round, then burn one and turn the last card, the river. It's one burn before every street, never two and never none. And the burn is there so nobody can catch a glimpse of the next card on top of the deck. There's one more dealer job between streets, and that's pulling in the bets. When a round of betting is over, slide everyone's chips into the middle, and not before, because until then, the chips in front of each player show exactly what they put in. If somebody throws their chips straight into the pot, nobody can tell whether they called or came up short. >> [music] >> And here's the mistake that starts the loudest argument of the night. The dealer flips the flop before the betting is finished. Somebody hadn't acted yet. Those cards don't play, even if everyone left decides to fold. So you finish the betting first, then you take those three cards, mix them back into the deck, leave the burn card where it is, shuffle, cut, and deal a brand new flop without burning again. It's the same idea if four cards come out on the flop instead of three. Under Robert's rules of poker, it doesn't matter if you know which one's the extra because the whole flop gets redealt. Tournament rulebooks fix it a little differently, so pick one rulebook and tell the table before the first hand. That one sentence saves you a 20-minute argument later. Now, the river betting is done, so it's showdown. And who shows first? If somebody bet or raised on the river, the last person who bet or raised shows first. If everybody checked the river, it starts with the first player to the left of the button. And the cards speak, so if someone says they've got two pair, but the board gives them a straight, the straight plays. Read every hand out loud and leave the cards face up until the pot's been pushed. Then split pots. Two players tied, the pot gets split down the middle and there's one chip left over. Who gets it? First, break it down into the smallest chips you have. And if it still won't split evenly, the odd chip goes to the first winner to the left of the button. Not the bigger stack and not whoever grabbed it first. Now, the rule I promised, the one people who've played for years still get backwards. When your game gets down to two players, the button posts the small blind and the other player posts the big blind. So, before the flop, the button acts first and after the flop, the button acts last on every street. It feels upside down the first time, but that's the rule in the official books and it keeps the button from getting both advantages. Then the button moves one seat to the left and the next person deals. And if you want your game to feel twice as fast, use two decks with different colored backs. While one deck is being dealt, the person who dealt the last hand shuffles the other one and slides it over to whoever deals next. So, when the hand ends, the next dealer already has a shuffled deck, gets a cut, and deals right away with no more sitting around waiting. So, the next time a card flips over or the flop comes out early, nobody has to argue about it because everyone at the table already knows the fix. And the last argument of the night is usually the settle-up. That's why I built HG Poker. It keeps track of every buy-in and rebuy and shows who owes who at the end. And it takes no bets, holds no money, and moves no money. So, tell me in the comments, when a card flips over on the deal at your table, do you redeal or play on? And if your friends are still learning what beats what, watch how to play poker next. >> [music]