No Limit Texas Hold’em is the most popular poker game in the world. Today, we will discuss what “no limit” actually means. The old westerns that showed a gambler placing a very large bet followed by a hapless homesteader putting up the deed to his house are not how things work today. I doubt they worked that way back then either. Anyway, a more accurate name for no limit is “bet any amount, up to table stakes”. The no limit portion means you can raise any amount preflop that is equal to, or greater than, the big blind. Table stakes means you can call or make any bet up to, and including, all of the money or chips you have on the table at the beginning of the hand. Adding to that pile in the middle of a hand is not permitted.
Let’s look at an example where Phil has 10,000 in chips, David has 5,000, and Roger has 15,000. Phil is in the small blind for 100, David in the big blind position for 200, and Roger is on the button, so he will be acting last. There are 6 other players at the table, but their names don’t matter as they all fold pre-flop. In this case the minimum raise is 200, making the first raise a bet to 400. The next raise would also need to be 200 or more to a minimum of 600. At any point though, the maximum allowable raise is “all in”, or the total amount of chips in front of a player.
Roger looks down at pocket Ace, King, both hearts, and decides to raise to 700. Phil calls 700 and David raises to 2500. Roger raises again to 8,000.
Phil wants to play for stacks with his pocket Queens, so he shoves all in for his 10,000 in chips. Meanwhile, David has pocket Aces and says there is no way he is folding, he calls for his stack of 5,000. Roger decides there is so much money in the pot that he needs to call. Roger needs to call the current largest bet, in this case the 10,000 bet by Phil.
Since both Phil and David have less than Roger, and David has less than Phil, they can only win up to their beginning stacks. No one is forced to fold. No one is forced to go to the poker room cage and buy more chips. They are entitled to stay in the pot and win or lose the pots that they “can reach”. This means they can win an amount up to their bet plus money from anyone that has the same amount or more. If other players have more, they can only win the equivalent to the bet from that player.
First, how many pots are there in this scenario? Three. Here is how they break down.
David has the smallest stack at 5,000 chips. The most either Phil or Roger can lose to him is the same amount. This means the pot that David can reach is 15,000. All three players have the ability to win this pot. This is referred to as the “main pot”.
The next smallest stack is Phil with 10,000. Since the first 5,000 from his stack is in the three-way pot above, he has 5,000 in chips leftover. Those all go into a “side pot” with 5,000 of Rogers chips.
Now we have the following. The main pot has 5,000 from each player for a total of 15,000. The side pot has 5,000 each from Phil and Roger for a total of 10,000. Since Roger started with 15,000, he still has 5,000 left in front of him that he cannot lose.
The board runs out AK973, no flushes.
For the main pot of 15,000 we see that David has three of a kind, Aces. Phil has one pair, QQ, and Roger has a two pair, AAKK. David has the highest hand here, so he wins the whole 15,000.
For the side pot of 10,000, Roger’s two pair is bigger than David’s QQ so Roger wins the 10,000 and David has nothing left. If this were a cash game, David could go get more chips for the next hand. He DOES NOT have to get more chips to match the remaining 5,000 that Roger had in his stack. If this were a tournament and we were 9 handed at the final table, Roger gets credit for knocking Phil out of the tournament and Phil takes 9th place. If this were a bounty tournament, Roger gets the full bounty as David’s stack was smaller than Phils. Even though he won the main pot, and that pot was the larger of the 2, if he and Phil were the only 2 players in the hand, David would win 5,000 from Phil, leaving Phil in the game with 5,000 in chips.
So, to recap, you can never lose more money in a hand than you have on the table at the beginning of the hand. If you “add on” to your stack in the middle of the hand, it is not “in play” for that hand and cannot be bet, won, or lost.