How to Play

 

Poker, the game that is easy to learn yet hard to master!

Here at Holland Casino Online, we offer the best in multi-table tournaments, cash games and Twister jackpot tournaments.

   

Our Games

 

Cash games

 

Cash games run 24/7, the blinds stay at the same level, and you can rebuy or leave the table anytime you like.

 

Multi Table Tournaments

 

We have a great range of tournaments available. Tournaments have set start times and are played in the below styles:

• Re-entry: Lose your chips? you can re-enter the same tournament with a brand new entry providing late registration is still open
• KO / Bounty: Each player has a bounty on their head. Eliminate a player to receive a share of the bounty and increase the bounty on your own head!
• Flighted / Phased tournaments : These take place over multiple days. Multiple day “1” tournaments all feed into a single day “2”. These tournaments feature larger prize pools and break up the time you need in a single session.
• Satellite tournaments: Qualify for bigger tournaments or live event seats by winning a ticket in a satellite tournament.

 

Twister Jackpot Sit & Go’s

 

Twister tournaments allow you to win big prizes in just a few minutes.

In Classic Twister you can hit a jackpot of 1000x the buy-in.

In Age of the Gods Twister, you can take down the progressive jackpot which can reach hundreds of thousands.

 

Sit & Go

 

These tournaments start as soon as the required number of players register and pay-out depending on the number of players in the tournament.

Most popular are the heads-up tournaments – will you be king of the Hill?

 

Game types

 

We offer the following poker games:

• Texas Hold'em
• Six Plus Hold’em
• Omaha
•  Omaha Hi-Lo

All games are played with a single deck of 52 cards. The bets placed by players accumulate into a pot as the game progresses. The best poker hand wins the pot.
The games are quite similar in their basic concept, but each has its unique strategic differences.

 

Texas Hold'em

 

Texas Hold’em, the Cadillac of poker! Easy to learn yet hard to master, this is the most popular game with the most players.
Texas Hold’em is a game with 2-9 players and can be played as no limit, pot limit or fixed limit. It is also a game with community cards, meaning that there will be up to five cards face up on the table that all players can use to make their best poker hand. Each player is also dealt two private cards that only they can see and should combine these with the community cards to make the best possible five card hand.

 

A Texas Hold'em game step-by-step

 

1. Dealer is determined: When a new round starts, one player is chosen to be the "dealer". He is marked with a special chip in front of him, the so-called "dealer button". The dealer button moves one position clockwise before each game round. This originates from poker in its elementary form when players had to deal the cards themselves.
2. Blinds are paid: There are two "forced bets" in the game: the blinds. Before any cards are dealt, the player immediately to the left of the dealer has to pay the "Small Blind", the player one seat further to the left has to pay the "Big Blind" which is usually twice the size of the small blind.
3. Players get their pocket cards: Around the table, every player is dealt two cards. These are called the pocket cards or hole cards and can only be used by the individual who holds them.
4. First betting round: Betting begins with the player immediately to the left of the big blind and continues in a clockwise direction around the table. Every player has the option to fold, check, call or raise.
5. Flop is dealt: Now three cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table. These cards are called "the flop". These are "community" cards and can be used by all the players to make up their final poker hand.
6. Second betting round: A second round of betting follows. This is carried out exactly as the first betting round, but now the first player to act is the first player left of the dealer that is still active (didn't fold before).
7. Turn is dealt: Another community card is dealt face up on the table, this is called “the turn”.
8. Third betting round: A third betting round takes place. Again, it's opened by the first player left of the dealer who is still active.
9. River is dealt: A last community card is dealt, called "the river".
10. Last betting round: This final betting round is carried out exactly as the third.
11. Showdown: If there are two or more players who haven’t folded their cards by the end of the final betting round, the winner is determined by a showdown. Each player builds the best five card poker hand out of his own two pocket cards and the five community cards. Whoever holds the best combination wins.

Start again: After a hand is completed and the pot taken by the winner, the dealer button is moved one player to the left, and the next hand begins.
Betting actions

• Fold: If you don't like your cards, you can fold. If you have posted a blind, made a bet or raised a bet, you will lose that money, but you will not lose any more. After folding, you are out of the game until the next hand begins.
• Check: If nobody has made a bet (the blinds count as a bet so before the flop only the big blind can check) you can check and pass the action to the next player.
• Call: If there has already been a bet or raise in front of you, you can call the bet (or raise it) to stay in the hand. To make a call, you pay the exact amount your opponent has bet.
• Bet / Raise / Reraise: If you think your hand is good enough, you can make a bet. If another player has already made a bet, you can raise it.

All-in

Whenever you bet or raise all your remaining chips, you are "all-in". No matter what other players are doing, you cannot be forced to fold your hand. Unlike poker in western movies, you will see a showdown without having to bet your house only to stay in the hand. Online you will play table stakes, so you’ll never have to bet more than your table balance in one hand to get to a showdown.
When you are all-in, you call all your chips and the pot is divided into the main pot and side pot. All subsequent chips are hereafter added to the side pot.
When the round is over and the "all-in" player does not have a winning hand, both the side pot and the main pot go to the winning hand, as usual.
When the round is over and the "all-in" player has a winning hand, the main pot goes to the "all-in" player, and the side pot goes to the next best hand.
When several players go all-in, multiple side pots are created. The pots are divided according to hand and order in which the players went all-in. The strongest hand wins the pot that was collected until he/she went all-in. The next strongest hand gets the pot that was collected from there to the point when he/she went all-in, etc.
The betting round continues until all players have folded or called the third raise, or until a bet has been called by all players (except the one who placed the bet) with no raise taking place.

 

Six Plus Hold’em

 

Six Plus Hold’em is a variant of Texas Hold‘em that uses a reduced deck. Instead of the standard 52 card deck, all cards with the values of 2,3,4,5 (4 deuces, 4 treys, 4 fours and 4 fives) are removed from the deck, resulting in a 36-card deck, where the lowest card is 6 and the highest A. Six Plus Hold’em follows the same game logic and betting structure as the classic Texas Hold’em. The only exception comes in the hand strength.
The aces can still be used for the high straight (AKQJT) as well as for the low straight (also called the wheel). This means that in Six Plus Hold’em, the hand A6789 is equivalent to the A2345 hand in classic Texas Hold’em, which is the weakest straight in both game types.
Six Plus Hold’em has a slightly different hand ranking from the classic Texas Hold’em:

• Royal Flush
• Straight flush
• Four of a kind
• Flush
• Full house
• Three of a kind
• Straight
• Two pair
• One pair
• High card

The two major differences are that Three of a kind now beats a Straight, and Flush beats a Full house. This is implemented to make up for the changed probabilities of hitting, due to the reduced deck as compared to classic Hold’em game with 52 cards.

 

Omaha

 

Omaha Hold’em follows the same rules as Texas Hold'em poker, but with two exceptions:

• You get four pocket cards instead of two.
• To build your final poker hand, you must use exactly two of your pocket cards and three of the community cards. Be careful and remember this rule. For example, if you get dealt four aces as your pocket cards, you don't have four of a kind. You only have a pair of aces because you have to use exactly two of your pocket cards.

The principle of the game is the same, but the two differences in the rules demand a very different strategy for playing Omaha Poker. Also, Omaha Poker is usually paid in the pot limit betting structure.
Omaha Hi-Lo
Omaha Hi-Lo follows the same rules as regular Omaha but adds another twist to the game. Instead of all players competing to get the best hand and win the pot, the pot is split into two pots, and you have to build two very different poker hands from your cards:

• Hi hand: The first half of the pot is played out as usual. You try to get the best possible combination, for example a Royal Flush, to win this pot.
• Lo hand: The second half of the pot goes to the worst hand. The lower your cards, the better.

A lo hand has to follow some more rules:

• All cards have to be an 8 or lower. An ace counts as a 1 - the lowest possible card.
• There are no straights or flushes.

This means that the "best" possible low hand is 5, 4, 3, 2, Ace.
In Omaha Hi-Lo every player always has a hi hand (no matter how bad it is) but not always a low hand because of the rule that all cards have to be an 8 or lower. If there is no player with a low hand, the winner of the high hand wins the whole pot including the low part.
There may also be several players with the same hi hand or the same lo hand. Then they have to share the hi part of the pot / the lo part of the pot according to their contribution to the pot.
In any case, your goal as a player in Omaha Hi-Lo is to make a "scoop" which means to win both parts of the pot by having the best hi hand and the best lo hand at the same time.

 

Betting structures

 

There are different betting structures available. No Limit games are the most popular, Pot limit games are reserved for Omaha.

No limit games
In no limit games there is no maximum bet or raise, you can move the chips you have at the table “all-in” whenever it is your turn.

Pot limit games
The minimum raise amount will be equal to the previous bet or raise in the same hand. For example, if the first player bets €10 and the second player wishes to raise, they must raise at least €10 more.
The maximum raise amount is equal to the total pot + total bets by other players in the betting round + the call amount of the player wishing to raise. For example, if the pot is €50, the first player bets €10 and a second player calls €10, the third player can raise up to €80 (€50 in the main pot + €20 from past bets in the round + €10 of the player's own call).

Fixed limit games
In fixed limit (or limit) games you can only bet or raise by a fixed predefined amount. There are two betting amounts:

• Small bet: Usually in the first two betting rounds a smaller bet amount is used.
• Big bet: Used in the later betting rounds.

If you see for example a €1/€2 fixed limit hold'em game, the small bet is €1 and the big bet is €2.

 

All-in Cash Out

 

The All-in Cash Out functionality is offered in No Limit Texas Hold’em Cash Games when two players go all-in, no more actions in the hand are possible, the River card is not dealt, and the player has at least some chance of winning (more than 0% and less than 100%).

You can set your preferences for the usage of the feature via the new All-in Cash Out option in the Table section of the settings.

Upon selecting the option, the All-in Cash Out preferences dialog appears. The dialog contains general information about the functionality and allows the player to enable or disable it.

• If the player selects the Never option, the client will not offer the possibility to Cash Out.
• If the player selects the By Hand option, the player will be offered the possibility to Cash Out in each appropriate situation.

 

The player should save his/her preference via the OK button.

When the gameplay begins and a Cash Out situation occurs, a pop-up on the table appears and asks the players whether they would like to Cash Out or run the hand as usual (No option). The players have several seconds to decide.

If one player chooses to Cash Out, the player immediately receives the amount offered by the room to his/her table balance. The hand is then played as usual.

• If the player who cashed out wins the hand, the pot (or the respective part of it) goes to the “Cash Out Fund”; the player cannot claim it.
• If the player who cashed out loses the hand, then the opponent will get the pot, as usual.
• If both players choose to cash out, they will be credited with the corresponding Cash Out amounts, and the pot will go to “Cash Out Fund”, regardless of the outcome of the hand.
• If both players reject to Cash Out, the hand runs as usual. The winner(s) will take the pot (or part of it) for themselves as usual.

 

Important note:

• Cashing out does not affect the outcome of the hand. The value of each player’s hand is based on the equity. The equity (all-in odds) is calculated based on the open cards - the board’s cards and the all-in players’ cards.

 

Rake

 

The house commission is between 0% and 7.5% of each total pot. We do not charge rake if the hand ended before the flop cards were dealt - "No flop no drop". Please refer to the rake and fee section for more information.

 

Hand Ranks

 

A poker hand consists of the best possible five card combination.

The 10 poker hand ranks
Below are the ten hand ranks for the "Hi poker" games such as Texas Hold'em where your goal is to make the best possible five card combination.

• Royal Flush: Straight flush from 10 to Ace of the same suit. Example: 10D, JD, QD, KD, AD
• Straight flush: Five card sequence of the same suit. Example: 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H, 9H
• Four of a kind: Four cards of the same value. Example: 7C, 7D, 7H, 7S
• Full House: Three cards of one value plus one pair. When more than one full house is competing, the one with the highest-ranking group of three wins. Example: 4H, 4C, 4S, JD, JS
• Flush: Five cards of the same suit. When more than one flush is competing, the one with the highest card wins. Example: 10H, 2H, JH, 4H, AH
• Straight: Five cards in sequence. When more than one straight is competing, the one with the highest card wins. An ace can be considered both high and low (but not high and low in the same hand). Example: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; the suit is irrelevant.
• Three of a kind: Three cards of the same value. Example: 7H, 7D, 7S.
• Two pair: Two different pairs, each made up by cards of the same value. When more than one two pair hands have the same value, the hand with the highest card outside the paired card wins. Example: 9D, 9S, QC, QD
• One pair: Two cards of the same value. In case of two hands having a pair, the highest one wins. When more than one pair have the same rank, the hand with the highest card outside the pair wins. Example: 8C, 8D
• High Card: When no player has achieved any of the above combinations, the hand with the highest card wins.

Lo hand in Omaha Hi-Lo
In Omaha Hi-Lo your goal is to make the lowest possible hand. Aces are the lowest possible card, counting as one, and there are no straights or flushes.
The best possible hand you can have in a "Lo" game is 5, 4, 3, 2, A the next best hand is 6, 4, 3, 2, A and so on.

 

Six Plus Hold’em hand ranking:

 

Six Plus Hold’em is a stripped deck Poker variant, as such the hand rankings are slightly different.

• Royal Flush
• Straight flush
• Four of a kind
• Flush
• Full house
• Three of a kind
• Straight
• Two pair
• One pair
• High card