In Texas hold 'em, as in all variants of poker, individuals compete for an amount of money or chips contributed by the players themselves (called the pot).

[3] After the game spread throughout Texas, hold 'em was introduced to Las Vegas in 1963 at the California Club by Corky McCorquodale.

[4] In 1967, a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim were playing in Las Vegas.

After its first year, a journalist, Tom Thackrey, suggested that the main event of this tournament should be no-limit Texas hold 'em.

[12] In 1983, Al Alvarez published The Biggest Game in Town, a book detailing a 1981 World Series of Poker event.

Although California had legal card rooms offering draw poker, Texas hold 'em was deemed to be prohibited under a statute that made illegal the (now unheard of) game "stud-horse".

[19] After a trip to Las Vegas, bookmakers Terry Rogers and Liam Flood introduced the game to European card players in the early 1980s.

Hold 'em's simplicity and popularity have inspired a wide variety of strategy books that provide recommendations for proper play.

[22] Many observers attribute this growth to the synergy of five factors: the invention of online poker, the game's appearance in film and on television, invention and usage of the "hole card cam" (which allowed viewers to see hole cards played in the hand as a means of determining strategy and decision-making during gameplay), the appearance of television commercials advertising online cardrooms, and the 2003 World Series of Poker championship victory by online qualifier Chris Moneymaker.

[citation needed] Texas hold 'em was the main game played during the movie and the no-limit variety was described, following Doyle Brunson, as the "Cadillac of Poker".

A clip of the classic showdown between Johnny Chan and Erik Seidel from the 1988 World Series of Poker was also incorporated into the film.

This film is unique in that it deals with the darker, more addictive elements of the game, and features Phil Hellmuth and Brad Booth.

[26] Hold 'em exploded in popularity as a spectator sport in the United States and Canada in early 2003, when the World Poker Tour adopted the lipstick cameras idea.

Moneymaker's victory initiated a sudden surge of interest in the series (along with internet poker), based on the egalitarian idea that anyone—even a rank novice—could become a world champion.

[29] The crowning of the 2004 WSOP champion, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, a patent attorney from Connecticut, further fueled the popularity of the event among amateur (and particularly Internet) players.

The 2003 and 2004 winners (Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer, respectively) of the World Series no-limit hold 'em main event qualified by playing in these tournaments.

[40][41] Although online poker grew from its inception in 1998 until 2003, Moneymaker's win and the appearance of television advertisements in 2003 contributed to a tripling of industry revenues in 2004.

These are the only cards each player will receive individually, and they will (possibly) be revealed only at the showdown, making Texas hold 'em a closed poker game.

After the pre-flop betting round, assuming there remain at least two players taking part in the hand, the dealer deals a flop: three face-up community cards.

A final single community card (called the river or fifth street) is then dealt, followed by a fourth betting round and the showdown, if necessary.

If arranged in order of hand strength from the strongest, it would be Ted's full house, Carol's flush, Alice's straight, and Bob's three of a kind.

The players' individual hands will not be revealed until the showdown, to give a better sense of what happens during play: Compulsory bets: Alice is the dealer.

[23] Almost all authors agree that where a player sits in the order of play (known as position) is an important element of Texas hold 'em strategy, particularly in no-limit hold'em.

One attempt to develop a quantitative model of a Texas hold'em tournament as an isolated complex system has had some success,[45] although the full consequences for optimal strategies remain to be explored.

[46][47] In January 2015, the AAAS journal Science reported that the group at the University of Alberta had succeeded in coding a computer program called Cepheus that can learn from its playing experience to optimize its CFR algorithm and approach playing perfection when opposing strong players in the variant known as heads-up limit Texas Hold 'em, which involves only two players.

[52] Suited starting hands are stronger than their unsuited counterparts, although the magnitude of this strength advantage in different games is debated.

This distinguishes hold 'em from other poker games where the number of starting card combinations forces strategy guides to group hands into broad categories.

Standard play allows all entrants to "buy-in" for a fixed amount and all players begin with an equal value of chips.

The following chart[58] determines the probability of hitting outs (bettering the player's hand) based on how many cards are left in the deck and the draw type.

[61] Pineapple and Omaha hold 'em both vary the number of cards an individual receives before the flop (along with the rules regarding how they may be used to form a hand), but are dealt identically afterward.