Do not confuse the previous post on “Table Stakes” with the cash game rule called “Money Plays”. Many rooms allow players to have both chips and cash at the table. When cash is allowed, we say that: “Money Plays”. This does not mean that the cash game actually becomes ‘cash only’ instead of chips but the idea is to facilitate the flow of the game and to accommodate the previously mentioned table stakes rules.

Suppose their is a big No Limit game in progress. Players have between 1,000 and 10,000 stacks at the table. Just from a practical point of view, that is a lot of chips. So players may have a thousand or two in actual chips and the rest is on the table in cash. Now there is no doubt what the table stacks are and money can move around the table more easily when some cash is involved.

Not all card rooms allow cash to play on the tables and those that do often limit the “money plays” rule to the high stakes games. One final tip, if money plays in your game, be sure you know which denominations play and which do not. Often only 100+ bills are accepted under the “money plays” rules.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #119

  Tables Stakes is a very simple concept, easily understood in practice but often the reasons for table stakes are not well grasped by the beginning player. Table Stakes simply means that you play any hand of poker with the money (or chips) in front of you. You may not add chips to your stack or take money out of your pocket or purse during the course of a hand. You may buy more chips between hands in most games to increase you stack, unless you are playing in a game with a fixed cap on buy-in and you are at or above that limit.

The other part of Table Stakes is that you may not remove chips or money from a table while you are still playing at that table. This is the part that many players do not fully understand. The term “Going South” refers to pulling part of our stake off the table and this is not allowed in any public card room. If you want to “lock up” part of your win, you will need to cash out of the game completely and then, if allowed, you can buy back in. Some houses require you to wait a minimum amount of time to re-enter a game under such circumstances and, if there is a waiting list, you will be moved to the end of the list.

The reason is that winnings are not winnings until you actually take them away, up until that time those chips are table stakes and are in play at the table where you won them. Players have the right to not have big winners pulling chips off the table and playing from short stacks to limit their loss exposure in a situation where they have already won chips in that same game.

The simple rules of table stakes are these: 1) you play each hand with only the stake you began that hand with; 2) you may not take chips off the table unless you take them all off and cash out.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #118

It is very common is cash games for the blinds not to play against each other when all the other players at the table have folded. This is called a “chop”. The idea is that the blinds have random cards, they were “forced” to post the blind and stand to win or lose very little. Also, and this is probably more important, the house will not take a rake or drop from the pot if the player’s chop. They just take their blinds back and the next hand is dealt.

Now there are a couple of things involving a chop you need to know. First, be sure the card room rules allow a chop, some do not; but every well run poker room allows the chop. If our local room does not, have a chat with the poker room manager, they will earn a lot more player good will by allowing chops rather than not.

Second, it is good poker etiquette that if you chop then you always chop and if you don’t then never do. Either position is fine but don’t be checking your hole cards and then deciding whether or not to chop. You do or you don’t that is the correct position to take.

Sometimes you might hear the remaining players at the end of a tournament “chopping up” the prize pool. This is more often referred to as making a deal. We talked about tournament deals in a previous post.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #117

  One more betting “gimmick” that you will often find in card room cash games, that is the Straddle. The straddle is an optional third blind, which is usually placed by the player to the left of the big blind. So, if you were playing in a 4/8 limit game, the blinds would be 2 and 4. The first raise would be from 4 to 8, so the straddle bet of 8 is placed before the deal by the first player to act.

The betting order is altered by the straddle just as it was by the Kill. The player who places the straddle bet will be the last to act before the flop. The advantage of acting last is basically what the Straddle player buys with his blind bet.

You should know that the straddle is used practically to liven up a table or get some action going when the play is considered to be too conservative or too tight. In fact, the straddle is a terrible bet as far as the odds go. While the blinds are forced bets, you pay once a round; the straddle is a voluntary blind bet and not just a bet but a raise! A player who constantly straddles is looking for action and generally they will find it, not always to their advantage.

One other variation you may hear is the “Mississippi Straddle”. This variation allows the straddle to be placed by any player at the table in any position not just the player who would normally be first to act. Frowned upon in many card rooms, the Mississippi Straddle is not allowed in many rooms and will not be tolerated by many players, who will sit out rather then have the game so dramatically altered.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #116

There are lots of betting variations that inhabit home poker games; wild cards, extra bets, side bets etc. But the “Kill Game” is actually a casino cash game variation. It works like this. Based on some pre-set event, such as a large pot or perhaps two consecutive wins by one player the “Kill” option is activated. For example:

You are playing 5/10 Hold’em “with a kill” and the kill is activated when a player wins two pots in a row. When this happens the player who wins those two pots will put up a third blind bet in the amount of one standard opening raise or in this case 20. The hand is played with an opening bet of 20 and in most card rooms the kill bettor gets to act last. So effectively the kill doubles the limits at the table for the kill hand only. If the same player wins again, the kill continues (it does not double again), if that player loses the hand, the blinds revert to 5/10.

Many rooms play both what they call a “Full Kill” where the blinds are doubled and a “Half Kill” where the blinds are increased 50% for the kill hand. Obviously, half kills must be played with even blinds, 2/4 becomes 3/6 or 4/8 becomes 6/12; you wouldn’t want to play 5/10 as a half kill and have to play 7.50/15.

Most rooms use a double sided kill button; one side is blank or says “one win” the other side says “Kill” usually in big, red bold letters. When the kill game is activated the dealer will put the Kill button up in front of the player and the player will post their kill blind directly on the button for all to see.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #115

Spread Limit is the least common betting structure you are likely to encounter but there are casinos and card rooms from Las Vegas to Moscow that do use Spread Limit. Any game played with a spread-limit betting structure allows a player to raise any amount within a specified range. So, if you are in a “one to five” spread limit game, any player may bet 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 on any betting round.

If player opens for 2 you could make it 7 or 6 or 5 or 4. Some but not all rooms require that your raise be of at least the same amount as the previous bet; so if someone bets 3 you cannot raise 2. This is not a universal rule, as some spread limit games allow any bet within the limits at any time. In such a room, you could bet 2, a raiser could make it 7 and the next bettor could make it 8. This is exactly why, when playing spread limit you should be clear on the local application of the rules.

In the United States you will often hear Spread Limit called “California Spread”; this is because many of the card rooms in California do not allow No Limit betting, instead to avoid the No Limit ban, rooms will have very high spreads like 1/100 or 2/500. The high end of the spread turns the game effectively into a No Limit game.

There is one warning about playing spread limit, which has to do with betting tells. If you always bet 2 on your drawing hands and 5 on your big pairs; your opponents will figure you out fast. Varying your bets is important in Spread Limit, either randomly vary your bets or never change your opening bet to avoid this obvious betting tell.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #114

Before we get into the details of Pot Limit betting, we should say that Pot Limit games are played a lot more in Europe then in the U.S. and that very good players often feel that Pot Limit is a much more skilled betting game than No Limit. We would also offer that learning to play Pot Limit will improve your Limit and No Limit betting skills. The reason for this is that with the Pot Limit betting structure you must learn to manipulate the size of the pot such that it is either more or less advantageous for an opponent to call you. And, of course, since the opponent knows you are manipulating them, it adds a whole new element to the “he knows that I know that he knows I know” aspect of the game.

In Pot Limit betting is simple in appearance but very tricky when in play. When it is a players turn to act, they may bet any amount up to the size of the pot. Simple right? But there is one twist. The pot size includes the player, who is doing the betting, first making the call. An example will help:

After the flop the pot is 300 and the first player to act bets 100. Notice they could have bet up to 300 but they only bet 100. The question is how much is the maximum the next player can bet? The pot is now 400 (300 from before the flop plus the 100 bet by the first player to act), here is how the “pot” calculation is done. First, the player wishing to raise the full amount must call the previous bet, which in this case is 100, so the 400 pot becomes 500 with the call. Now a “pot” bet is made of 500. So the player will put in 600 of which 100 is the call and 500 is the new full pot bet. The pot is now 1,000 and the next player may make a bet of 1,000 + 1,000 = 2,000 + 2,000 = 4,000 total.

Got that? It really is not that difficult but it does take some practice. One final fact about Pot Limit games, a good pot limit dealer will always keep track of the pot and if you ask they will know how much is in there at all times, however, to become a good pot limit player you should keep accurate track of the pot yourself.

Join an interesting discussion of Pot Limit betting in our poker forum.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #113

Limit poker or Fixed Limit poker is a betting structure with both a set bet amount as well as a limit to the number of bets per round. Limit poker is the more common type of game played in a non-tournament setting. The “cash games” or “ring games” in most card rooms are played with a fixed limit structure. For example, you walk into a poker room and you see on the board 4/8 Hold’em; 8/16 Hold’em and 4/8 Omaha. What does that mean?

Well there are two different limit Hold’em games being spread in this room and one limit Omaha game. The first Hold’em games will begin with blinds of 2 and 4. The big blind always matches the first limit in the game section, so in a 4/8 game the big blind is 4. Betting will be in increments of 4 both before and after the flop and in increments of 8 on the turn and river. Same for the Omaha 4/8 game. The higher betting limit is in place in the last two rounds of play.
This means that after the blinds of 2 and 4 are put out and the cards are dealt the first player to the left of big blind may either fold, call the 4 or raise to 8. The next player may fold, call the 8 or raise to 12. All bets are in factors of 4 (4, 8, 12, 16, 20….). Most limit games cap the number of bets, usually at 4 or 5 bets per round. Be aware that in some games this limit is removed if and when the hand becomes heads up between two remaining players.

“Limit” games refer to the posted betting limits, these games often will have minimum buy-ins set by the house but no maximum buy-in because the amount you can wager on any hand is limited by the betting structure. Some tournaments are played with limit betting structures including most if not all of the HORSE, Razz and Stud tournaments. Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo are played with both limit and pot limit structures.

The next post will cover “pot limit” structures.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #112

The game that has popularized poker is No Limit Texas Hold’em. The No Limit betting structure is seldom applied to other forms of poker, like Omaha, Razz or Stud. The basic rule of No Limit betting is simple: When it is a players turn to act they may bet any or all of their chip stack. The No Limit bet or “All In” as it is commonly known is a powerful move, which some purists will tell you is overused by beginning players. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, while your entire stack is your high end limit for your bet in a No Limit structure, there is also the minimum bet to consider.

Hold’em is generally played with two forced blind bets, called the small blind and the big blind. Let’s just take for our example a No Limit tournament situation where the blinds are 100/200. Once the 100 small blind and the 200 big blind are posted, the down cards are dealt and the first player to the left of the big blind is first to act. They may fold, call the big blind of 200 or raise. If a player decides to raise then they must raise “at least” the amount of the big blind. So the minimum raise would be 200 making the minimum raise bet 400 (200 to call the big blind + a minimum raise of 200). The next player to act may fold, call the 400 or raise to at least what? The answer is not 800 but 600. A raise must be “at least” an additional bet of whatever was the last raise or the big blind whichever is more.

Let’s try one more example. The blinds are 500/1,000. After three players fold, the next player makes it 4,500. What is the next bet, if the next player only wants to raise the minimum?

Well the first raise was 3,500, from 1,000 to 4,500; so the next player could minimum raise another 3,500 making the bet 8,000.

Now the easy question. What is the maximum raise?

That’s why so many players like No Limit Hold’em, the maximum raise is always whatever you have in front of you. If you have only 6,400, then you can make it 6,400 and if you have 65,000, well go ahead! Its called No Limit Hold’em.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #111

This is our second Tournament Director’s Association rule discussion. Note that we are not taking the rules in order, 1 through 40, but rather looking at the rules as we feel they might help a beginning player understand the play of a sanctioned tournament. We will eventually work our way through the entire TDA set of tournament rules.

Rule #7: Penalties and Disqualifications.

A penalty MAY be invoked if a player exposes any card with action pending, throws a card off the table, violates the one-player-to-a-hand rule, or similar incidents take place. Penalties WILL be invoked in cases of soft play, abuse, or disruptive behavior. Penalties available to the TD include verbal warnings and “missed hand” penalties. A missed hand penalty will be assessed as follows: The offender will miss one hand for every player, including the offender, who is at the table when the penalty is given multiplied by the number of rounds specified in the penalty; for the period of the penalty the offender shall remain away from the table. Tournament staff can assess one-, two-, three-, or four-round penalties or disqualification. A player who is disqualified shall have his or her chips removed from play. Repeat infractions are subject to escalating penalties.

Notice that the floor staff have some discretion as penalties MAY be enforced versus WILL be enforced. I would point out that even in the “WILL be” situations, there remains a good deal of discretion left in the hands of the tournament staff. As with any tournament rule if you feel there is a violation or if you do not understand why a rule is not being enforced, you are within your rights to call for the floor and as for a ruling or rule clarification.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #110