Someone Has Raised Me in Texas Holdem Poker - What Do I Do?!

Unfortunately for anyone looking for a definitive answer... there is no definitive answer. Your next action will depend primarily upon the strength of the hand you currently hold, in combination with other factors such as your propensity for bluffing and, just as important, whether the player who has raised likes a good bluff also. Perhaps they have raised just to try and force out as many players as they can from seeing the flop and so reducing the likelihood of a person flopping a great hand through good fortune. Alternatively they may be raising because they do actually hold an almighty hand and are simply trying to create as large a pot as possible.

In this situation it will be up to your own judgement as to what to do next after being raised. Whilst video poker may be a straightforward game of best-strategy against a computer (click the Video Poker tab at the top of the page for more information on the game of video poker), a "real poker game" such as Texas Holdem will not be so black and white in terms of what to do or how to play the situation. A player needs to assess their potential for winning the pot based on the strength of their hand and an approximation/guess as to what their opponent(s) may be holding, which in some ways is simpler in Texas Hold Em poker as the five communal cards make up a large proportion of a rival's hand. They also need to try and judge whether or not their opponents raise was a bluff or not.

Every player takes a chance and gets it wrong during a session, as without cheating it is impossible to know what cards an opponent has all of the time. The secret to being a successful poker player though is to make the correct decision more often than not, even if that means playing cautiously and forgoing some pots to a person who was bluffing. Whilst it may be annoying when it happens, over time a person is likely to end up with far more money than they would if they called every raise and stayed in every hand just to see it to its conclusion and find out if they really could win with the cards which they hold.