PogoTips.com - Texas Hold'em

Find tips by game:

Texas Hold'em Poker


Game awards	Natural Four Aces Get four Aces in a hand (without using jokers) Natural Royal Flush Get a Royal Flush (without using jokers) This game has ranks but no rank badges at this time

Challenge badges	Ride 'em Armadillo (5/19/04) Win five hands Nine-Banded Armadillo (8/18/04) Win nine hands Stake Your Claim (12/15/04) Get six jackpot spins Showdown (4/6/05) Get nine jackpot spins Hold'em or Fold'em (9/21/05) Win 12 hands Lasso'em (1/25/06) Win ten hands with Two Pair or better Poker Power (6/28/06) Win five hands with a Straight or better Pig 'n Poultry Poker (11/1/06) Win ten hands

Premium badges	Armadillo (animated) I Heart Badges book Win nine hands with 3 of a Kind or better Hold'em House (animated) 10-Pack book Win five hands with a Full House or better
Mix & Match	Ridin' High EXPIRED Mix & Match (thru 11/14/07) Get four jackpot spins Big in Texas EXPIRED Mix & Match (thru 4/15/08) Win three hands with Three of a Kind or better On the Sly Mix & Match (thru 12/9/08) Win ten hands with a Flush or better Dealer's Shuffle Mix & Match (thru 2/17/09) Get 12 jackpot spins Friendly Cowboy Mix & Match (thru 7/14/09) Win 8 hands with Two Pair or better

Badge tips

Be sure you don't confuse this game with No Limit Texas Hold'em when activating badges!

Select a table on the Just For Fun tab (either Limit or No Limit) if you don't want to gamble with real tokens and/or real people.

Be sure to play without jokers if you're going for either of the two Game Awards..

..However, this game has had a glitch where if you get Four Aces or a Full House with jokers and then fold before the hand ends, you'll get the respective badge. Note there's no guarantee this glitch will continue to work.

For faster badges, play with friends or cooperative partners. Set jokers wild on the table options, then every player should hit Check and Call instead of raising stakes, not draw new cards, and take turns folding for "win hands" badges. Alternating wins will go quickly this way and you'll come out fairly even on tokens for game win badges, but you could lose a lot trying for required hands.

For badges requiring wins with a specific hand or better, play as above but draw new cards as needed. When one player has the required hand, the other(s) should fold.

For game win badges, refer to Game tips.

Game tips

ALWAYS read a game's How to Play, and also check for a Hints or Tips tab and/or Tutorial. They do help!

Your poker hand is made up of two cards from your hand and three community cards from the table. Your best current hand is highlighted in white on the hand rankings table to the left of your cards, and the best possible hand given the community cards is in blue.

Your rank in this game will go up and possibly down (see note below) depending on tokens won or lost. Your rank progress will generally increase faster when you win than it will decrease when you lose. The tab you play on also affects rank progress, which is fastest in Super Rollers games and slowest on Just For Fun. Also, rank progress is a bit faster playing against humans than against Pogobots.

You can play faster games on the real token tabs as they have no Pogobots. You can set a private table with just two people on the Limit/Low Rollers tabs but you will be gambling with real tokens.

When playing to win against Pogobots, raise your bet to the maximum possible each turn. This sometimes makes the bots fold. Even if they don't all fold, you can eliminate some of the competition.

The No Limit tab is for tournament-style games where you can bet your entire stake ("all in"). Four people (or six - see note below) are required to start a No Limit game.

Serious poker players usually play on the Middle, High or Super Rollers tabs and bet with real tokens. Don't join these games unless you're confident in your poker abilities or don't care if you lose tokens!

More about Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold'em's No Limit option came along in May 2007, the same time as the very-similarly named No Limit Texas Hold'em was released, causing much confusion for many people (including me). 6th Street Omaha Poker is also played similar to the two Texas games.

This game's how-to-play has a discrepancy on the Ranks page. It says "Although your rank value does decrease for losing tokens, you'll never drop down a rank. Once you've reached a particular rank, it's yours to keep" but just below that it says "Q: My rank will go down when I lose tokens? A: Yes"

There's also a discrepancy on the Basics/No Limit page. It says "Four players are required to start a game" and below that it says "A game must have six players in order to start."

Poker is easy to learn but difficult to master, and since I'm no expert I won't say much here about how to win beyond badge- and Pogo-specific tips. There are countless resources online and off about how to play better poker.. take advantage of them!

Return to PogoTips.com home