I know that this is a very basic question, but it came up in some informal poker games (no real money) with friends and family. If player A and player B are betting on a hand, and player A bets more chips then Player B actually has, what happens? It seems unfair for PLayer B to be forced to fold, but I’m not sure what the exact rule is.
Thank you very much!
player A can not bet more chips than play B has. If there are other people at the table, player A can bet the exact amount of chips player B has (called pushing all in), and then create a “side pot,” which anyone who wants to call the bet has to match in addition to the main pot, except for player B who is all in. If player B wins, he takes the main pot, and (i’m not sure on this rule, but this is how we play), whoever has the next best hand gets the side pot.
Vinnie sums it up pretty well basically.
If you have $5.00 and go in $2.00 and your friend raises you $5.00 you can only go all in, that is put the other $3.00 in. You cannot be forced to fold.
I’m no great experience poker player but in my life’s time I have made money at the game, primarily in Hold’Em cash games, at Casino’s or Poker houses. I’m not a “diverse” player in that I don’t engage in complex strategies like some may and I don’t really know much about the proper rules/etiquette for games that fall out of the ones I primarily play.
I have seen in movies, FWIW, poker games where you can be prevented from calling a bet by going all in unless you have enough funds.
It depends on the house rules. I used to play a couple backroom-bar games, and it was part of the rules if you didn’t have enough to cover you had to fold. Known as ‘buying the hand’. Guys who made a habit of it didn’t get invited back, because nobody wanted to play with a guy who dropped a 3K roll to cover the fact his bluff had been called on a $200 pot, when the rest of the table each had around a $500 stake.
It happened frequently enough that it put me off poker though.
Wolfman is technically correct, but that way of playing is the exception now-a-days. If you have a freindly game, be sure to cover this, just in case. Also- whether or not a A2345 is a straight, and whether that hand is also a Low hand for Lowball, and if “sandbagging” (check then raise by the same dude) is kosher.
You can watch this all the time on TV in those Texas Hold’em Tourneys- one guy will say “all in” and the other dude will cover him. No one can be “bought out”.
Player B can only win the pot he has money in, same as any other player. The side pot is determined first, then the main pot. There can be many side pots, the last pot should have the fewest amount of people in it.
I was once in a tourney in LA where like 7 of us went all-in in about 4 pots (right before the buy-in deadline). The first two people went all-in b/c they were short-stacked and they had good starting hands. I stuck around, b/c I thought they were bluffing (very, very aggressive players vs. a bunch of calling stations) and I could afford to call – I was 3rd in the chip lead for the table and pot odds were good. I was on the dealer button so I watched the players put each other. By this time, I made it to the river, and what started out to be a pretty crappy starting starting hand (J-7 suited) turned out to be a straight flush winner, beating a A-K flush, a straight, a full house and a four of a kind. Oh, and I went on to be the overall leader (~110 people tourney). The rest of the tourney was pretty ho-hum as I just used my huge stack to smack down my opponents.
Player B could always stake his shirt, horse, boat, wife, etc. 
Totally depends on the game being played and the house rules.
With the huge popularity of Texas Hold’em, everyone these days seems to think that Texas Hold’em=Poker. Not so, and I’ve played plenty of games in which there was a limit to the amount of a raise and the number of raises per round… but that you had to call if you wanted to stay in the game… no “all in” and side pots.
I’ve also played relatively cutthroat no-limit games with the same rules, and was witness to a situation similar to wolfman’s – we were playing with $5 bumps and a guy would plop a $1000 into the pot to save himself… except that the third time he did it, another player pulled out his wallet, dropped cash on the table to call, and player #1 turned white as a sheet. It was a beautiful moment; I only wish I had been the one with the stones to do it.
It’s really important to establish the rules before the game starts. For example, the regular game where I used to live, we had a limit (minimum bet, maximum bet, maximum raise, maximum # of raises per round). We allowed someone to bet whatever they wanted (up to the limit). If that was more than you had, you could either pull out your wallet, fold, or borrow from someone else at the table.
The game I play in now doesn’t allow that. You can buy more chips only between hands. Once the cards are dealt, you can’t add more chips or throw in any cash. We use the “side pot” method.
I recommend the book, The Rules of Neighborhood Poker According to Hoyle, by Robert Wolpin (0942257197) for designating rules in casual games. That book, a copy of the regular Hoyle, a red pen, and a highlighter can deal with most rule disputes before they ever happen.
RULE 237: A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.
The most common stakes for a poker game are (1) “limit” poker and (2) “no-limit” or “table stakes” poker.
In “limit” poker, there is a limit on how much you can raise. So, in your scenario, player A can only bet up to the limit. If player B does not have enough to cover it, then, yes, he has to fold. Or he can pull some cash out of his wallet, throw in an iou (if they will take his iou) etc.
In table stakes poker, then, it’s as others have described: player B can only be forced to bet at most what he has in his hand. If he only has $10 left, and player A throws in $200, then player B has to go “all in” but he can’t be forced out.
Franco Zeffirelli had me thinking Player B could bet his kid’s pet racehorse.
Or is that just in craps?
“Table stakes” does not mean “no-limit”. Table stakes means only that you cannot add to your stack during a hand. This applies to limit and no-limit games.
The description given by various posters above (wherein the short-stack player must commit all his chips to stay in a hand and all further betting goes to a side pot) applies for limit games as well as no-limit games. It just doesn’t come up as often in limit games.
Table stakes is an almost universal rule. The game of poker just wouldn’t work without it.
Why not? We had a regular Friday night game for years that didn’t use table stakes. Did it only work because we were all friends, or was the game subtly broken in ways we didn’t understand?
I’ve played friendly poker, but with real money, with friends & family for several years and we’ve never had a problem with anyone adding to their pot during a hand. In fact, that’s what you have to do to keep someone from buying it (although its friendly enough that we allow ‘going shy’).
We used to play with 50¢ pieces but one of our players hit hard times so we dropped it down to 25¢. We always have a maximum bet of $2 but there’s no limit to the number of times you can raise.
A real man never bets his horse.
Between friends, letting people throw all sorts of cash around isn’t too terrible, assuming you and your friends aren’t being ultra-competitive. However, in cash money games, this type of situation is rife for a set-up/rigged game. I forgot what it’s called, but it’s basically a collusion. Two or more players will communicate what they have to each other, a mechanic will deal the cards (or not, if the communication is good), one or more players will bet the pot up, causing the monster hand to either force the mark to dip into his cash reserve, or he’ll bring his out to buy out the mark.
Cheating aside, it’s also not fair to the players who are short stacked, or to the player trying to force a (other) player(s) to become short stacked. Basically, against the big wallet, you’re dealing with a guy with an unlimited bank roll. Pushing your chips against someone has a psychological effect, particularly when the person is short. This tactic becomes less effective if the guy can say, ok, I’ll just throw out my wallet. I’ll expand more on this if you don’t know what I mean.
I see what you’re saying, mazinger_z, but I still don’t see how it applies to a limit game. With a max bet and a max number of raises, you’re not going to have someone pulling a massive wad of money out of their wallet. Also, if anyone was ever caught engaging in collusion, setup, or any other questionable activity, we’d simply heave their butts out of the game. Heck, there’s only a couple of thousand people living in this town. You cheat once, you don’t play anywhere.
My question really is: in a game with people you know and trust, where there are betting limits, what deleterious effect (if any) is there to not playing table stakes?
Oh, my fault Wombat, I thought you were talking about no-limit hold’em. Yeah, that game is not for friendly competition. I guess my answer depends on the limits. For instance, I still wouldn’t allow people to pull out the wallet in a pot limit game, and I wouldn’t allow it in a 3-6 game where the buy in was $50 (well, maybe). If it’s a $10 buy-in and your limits are .25 -.5, with max 3 raises, then it shouldn’t be a problem. I do agree that if the game imposes betting limits, “wallet crushing”/“buying the hand” won’t be too much of a problem. However, you have to know your players. Where I play and have played, there is no buy-in during the game, it causes:
a) a delay in the game;
b) typically causes a *****miscount in the chips; and,
c) (if you talk to the hardcore poker theorists out there) it weakens the psychological game of putting someone all-in.
Arguably, that last point is the crux of the argument b/c this what the hardcore players argue is quintessential to the art of poker. Also, we don’t play this way b/c the pros don’t play that way.
***** - This happens more than you know. Though I can’t explain why. It also happens when people pull out of the pot to not slow up the game, to show what they owe. Why? I have no idea…
No problem. We play dealer calls the game, so we get a mix of stud, draw, hold 'em, Omaha, and so forth.
We don’t do new buy-ins and issue new chips. Typically, someone pulls a bill out of his pocket and cashes it from the pot. The winner of that pot tucks the bill in his pocket or under his chips. We’re not concerned about the minor delay because the weekly poker games aren’t serious play-as-many-hands-as-possible games, they’re just fun social get-togethers.
In the game I play in now, though, the rule says you can only add money to your stack between hands, so if somebody is getting low on chips, they’ll stuff some cash under the chips during a deal.