How to play — calmholdem

Getting started

Get the calmholdem app on your iPhone or iPad.
Pick a name. No account, no password, no signup. Just choose the name other players will see.
Pick how much help you want. No help, help at the time, or a critique after each of your decisions. You can change it at any point, even mid hand.
Pick how you want to play. Play joins an open table if one is waiting, or opens your own with 2 to 9 seats. Start whenever you like and the computer fills any empty seats. Or create a private table, share its six letter code, and friends join you.

Tables are live and never played for you: take all the time you need. Your seat and your chips are saved while you’re away — lose connection or close the app and the table pauses, resuming right where you left off. When other players are waiting, the computer covers an absent player’s decisions after a short grace, and a decision that stalls too long can be skipped by a vote of everyone waiting. If you leave a tournament entirely, the computer plays your chips out.

The shape of the game

This is no limit Texas hold’em, played as a sit and go: everyone buys in for the same stack, the blinds go up every few hands, players are knocked out as they run out of chips, and the last one with chips wins. There is no money in it — the prize is the finish and, on the leaderboards, how well you played.

One hand, start to finish

The button marks the dealer and moves one seat to the left each hand. The two players to its left post the small blind and the big blind — forced bets that give everyone something to play for.
Everyone is dealt two cards face down, yours to see and nobody else’s. This is the pre‑flop betting round, starting to the left of the big blind.
Three shared cards go face up in the middle: the flop. Another round of betting, this time starting to the left of the button.
A fourth shared card, the turn. Betting again.
A fifth, the river. The last round of betting.
Showdown. Everyone still in makes their best five card hand out of their two cards and the five on the table — any combination, including playing the board. Best hand takes the pot; equal hands split it.

A hand can also end at any point when everyone but one player folds. That player takes the pot and never has to show their cards.

What you can do on your turn

Fold — give up the hand and whatever you have already put in.
Check — stay in for nothing. Only when there is no bet in front of you.
Call — match the bet in front of you.
Bet — put chips in when nobody else has. The minimum is one big blind.
Raise — put in more than the bet in front of you. A raise must be at least as big as the previous raise, and no limit means the most you can ever bet is every chip in front of you.

Once your chips are all in you cannot be forced out: you play to the river for the part of the pot you covered. If others keep betting beyond your stack, that extra money goes into a side pot you cannot win but they can.

Hand rankings, best first

Hand	What it is
Straight flush	Five in a row, all one suit. Ace high is a royal flush.
Four of a kind	All four cards of one rank.
Full house	Three of one rank and two of another.
Flush	Five of the same suit.
Straight	Five in a row, any suits. The ace plays high or low, so A‑2‑3‑4‑5 counts.
Three of a kind	Three cards of one rank.
Two pair	Two of one rank and two of another.
One pair	Two cards of one rank.
High card	None of the above; the highest card plays.

Between two hands of the same kind, the higher cards win, and the unpaired cards (the kickers) break the tie. Only the best five cards count — a sixth card never rescues anything.

The coach

The coach is the reason this app exists. It reads the same hand you are looking at — your two cards, the board, the chips, and every action taken this hand — and works out what it would do, by simulating the hand out thousands of times against the range of cards the others are representing.

Three settings, changeable at any time:

No help. The coach says nothing. It is still grading you quietly in the background, so your play still counts on the leaderboards.
Help me decide. Before each of your decisions the coach shows its recommendation and the numbers behind it, and puts a verdict on every other option in front of you.
Critique my play. The coach keeps quiet while you decide, then tells you what it would have done and why — the best way to find out whether you are actually thinking, rather than reading.

The numbers it shows you

Equity — how often your hand wins from here, as a percentage, against the opponents still in and the sort of cards their betting suggests they hold.
Pot odds — what share of the final pot a call costs you. If your equity is higher than your pot odds, the call makes money in the long run, even when it loses this time.
Outs — how many unseen cards would turn your hand into a real one.
Position — where you sit relative to the button, and whether you act last. Acting last is worth more than most beginners believe.
Stack in big blinds — how much room you have left to play. Under about twelve big blinds the game becomes all in or fold, and the coach says so.

The halls of fame and shame

Every decision every human makes is graded against the coach, whether or not they asked for help. Finish a tournament and your decision accuracy goes on the boards: the hall of fame for the sharpest play, the hall of shame for the loosest. Where you finished is shown beside it, because you can win a tournament badly and lose one well.

Boards are kept per table size and per number of computer seats, so a game against eight computers never competes with a full table of people. There are also boards for your average over 1 to 10 finished tournaments in a row — walking out of a tournament resets that run.

A tournament needs at least fifteen graded decisions before it can go on a board, so one lucky hand cannot top it.