What is Blinds in poker?

Blinds refer to the mandatory bets posted by the two players to the left of the dealer button before any cards are dealt in a poker hand. These forced contributions, consisting of the Small Blind and Big Blind, serve to create an initial pot that players will compete for. Their primary purpose is to ensure there's always an incentive to play a hand and to prevent players from simply folding every hand without consequence, thus maintaining game flow and action. Without blinds, there would be no immediate cost to folding, leading to extremely tight and unplayable games.

The player in the Small Blind posted $1, and the player in the Big Blind posted $2, creating a $3 pot before the first card was dealt.

Blinds (Blind) belongs to the Betting side of the game and shows up in almost every hand of Texas Hold'em. If you are just starting out, read the poker rules and the hand rankings first, then come back here. To practise risk-free you can play against our AI right on the site.