We see it a lot in movies where someone goes “all in” while gambling (usually poker).
How doe that work?
I get that if I have (say) $1000 and another player has $2000 they can make it so I can’t complete a hand because I can no longer meet the bet. I assume “all in” is meant to cover that.
But if someone bets $2000 and I have only $1000 how does the bet resolve itself? How does it get paid out when the hand is over? Either way…I win or I lose…what happens?
You don’t have to meet the bet if it exceeded your chips and you are correct, all-in is how you handle a call if you are short on chips. If it’s just the two of you, the person with the $2000 is effectively only risking the amount you matched, $1000 in this case, so if they lose, you get the pot, minus their $1000 that exceeded your bet. For another scenario:
Depending on the type of poker, there would likely be additional rounds, but for simplicity let’s say that the betting ends here.
I hope that makes sense.
You can also lead with an all-in bet, in which case others much match their chips (or raise if they desire which can affect those after them) if they don’t want to fold, or go all-in if they have fewer chips.
DMC explained it pretty well. Furthermore, if two or more people call an all-in bet, any additional bets they make afterwards are placed in a side pot (and there can be multiple of these as well!) which the all-in player is not entitled to win.
This Wikipedia subsection on side pots details it nicely.
There’s a concept of “table stakes”, as in what you have on the table will always be sufficient.
This also means that some of the things you might see in movies might not usually happen in real life, e.g. somebody doesn’t have enough money to cover a bet so they offer up personal jewelry or property so they can keep playing and get into trouble trying to make good on it afterward.
That’s not to say that sort of thing can’t happen in a particular game, but it’s really shady and probably not a game you should be involved with.
It should be noted that you being short can affect subsequent betting.
For instance, let us suppose we’re playing after the river (the final round of betting.) I am first to act. I have $1000, and go all in. You follow me; you have $1200, so you can fold, call $1000, or go all in for $1200. I am assuming there are players to play after you.
If you go all in for $1200, in most card rooms this is a “Short raise” - because you lacked enough money to make a proper raise (which would be another $1000) and were only allowed to do that because it’s all you had, a player acting after you cannot raise again. Your short raise effectively cuts off all subsequent action. It’s an odd rule, and I don’t quite get why it exists, but there it is.
This is interesting to me. I kind of knew that other pots must sometimes exist because they cover some all-in bets like described above. But I thought “side pots” were something different. I figured they were little side bets like: “10 to 1 sez you don’t got any spades in your pocket cards.”
Oh, those definitely exist as well, they’re just called … wait for it … side bets. 
For instance, in this high-stakes cash game, at 4:32 in the video one player pays off a side bet he made with another player after seeing the hole cards of the loser of that hand, and at 5:15 the other players are egging the winner of that hand for not revealing his hole cards, over which they had another side bet.
Yeah… it looks like basically I conflated side pots with side bets.
Totally an aside but all of them futzing with their chips non-stop is sooooooo annoying.
Interestingly, the rules of Brag page suggests that
I am not sure this singular they/their makes the explanation really more clear, I am still trying to come to grips with this, but in your second case I believe you have to consider two possibilities: Player 1 beats player 3, in which case he (let me assume player 1 is male and player 3 female, I believe this makes it clearer in this particular case with three contenders) loses 1000 to you as stated but wins 500 from player 3, so he started with 2000 and ends with 1500. Or player 3 beats player 2, in which case she loses 1000 to you as stated, but wins 500 from player 1 and keeps 500, so she started with 1500 and ends with 1000, while player 1 ends up with just 500.
In both cases you can only win 1000 from each player, as that is all you can bet all in, therefore 1500 must end up being divided between the other two players.
There is a nice treatment of this in the (2006) Casino Royale - the villain wants to increase his bet but has run out of cash on the table, so he reaches for his pocket - but the dealer stops him, saying something like “table stakes only, sir”. So he points to his car keys and says “OK, they’re on the table” and pushes them into the middle with his chips. The dealer raises an eyebrow and seems about to disallow this (as indeed would be the case in any normal game) but Bond tells him to allow it - and, of course, subsequently wins the hand and the car. Which is how Bond first gets his taste for the Aston Martin DB5. Or at least, so the conceit of the film goes.
It’s been a while since I was a regular in card rooms and I don’t recall coming across this situation ‘in the wild’, so I’ll defer to your knowledge, but is this really the case, or is it just that following players cannot bet $1,400 and call it a raise (on the basis it is $200 more than the all-in player’s $200 ‘raise’)? It would seem to me to be much more logical to say if following players want to raise, it has to be by at least $1,000 (or perhaps $1,200) more - unless they themselves are going all-in for a lower amount. To rule otherwise seems to give the all-in player unjustified influence over money that they cannot win.
Exactly, that’s correct.
In practice, any competent dealer will arrange this by sorting out how much money goes in the main pot first, then sorting out any side pots starting with the player(s) with the next smallest total amount invested, and so on.
You forgot to settle the side-pot. In this scenario, there are now 2 pots:
Pot A: Has $3,000 in it ($1k from each) and will be won by whichever of the 3 players has the highest hand.
Pot B: Has $1,000 in it ($500 each from Players 1 and 3) and will be won by either Player 1 or 3 based on which of the two of them has the higher hand as compared only to each other.
You are absolutely correct. I tried to avoid main-pot/side-pot terminology as I already felt my explanation was confusing enough, but left out the player 1/player 3 side action in the second scenario in the process.
Nope, it’s precisely as I described, and yeah, it’s very weird. If you are a subsequent player with a big stack holding the nuts, it’s frustrating.
One of the things I like about hold 'em is that the rules make SENSE. There is nothing weird or arbitrary; it is a perfectly designed game, save one thing. I’ve taught many people to play it and what I always say when first showing how it works is “if you’re confused at all, trust me; when we play an actual game, all these rules will make sense to you” and it’s always true.
The short raise rule is the one rule I don’t get at all.
I can’t look at most poker sites right now (firewall restrictions) but I did find these 2, both of which seem to disagree with you:
(following link broken by removing // as it was breaking Discourse for some reason)
http:poker.stackexchange.com/questions/2729/what-is-the-min-raise-and-min-reraise-in-holdem-no-limit
Is it possible you’re thinking of the situation where player A raises, player B short ‘raises’ all-in, and player C just calls - in that case, player A is not permitted to raise again? Contrast that with player A raises, player B short raises all-in, player C makes a further legitimate raise (which is allowed in ‘my’ world) - then player A can re-raise further
That’s odd. Here’s your second link with the // back in place and it seems to work fine.
I’m not sure if the answers so far have been very clear. I think I wouldn’t understand them if I wasn’t already a poker player. I’ll try and give another answer.
Adam has 10K chips, and bets 2K.
Bill has 15k chips,and calls the bet.
Charlie has 1k chips, and calls all in
Dave has 800 chips, and calls all in.
If Charlie has the best hand at showdown, he wins all of Dave’s 800, plus 1000 each from Adam and Bill, plus his own 1000 back, for a total of 3800.
If Dave has the best hand at the showdown, he wins 800 chips from each player, plus gets his own 800 back, for a total of 3200 win.
The remainder of the pot goes to whoever has the 2nd best hand. Well, actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that will do for a simple explanation.
In that situation, Adam and Bill will also set up a side pot for their own betting going forward. Depending on the type of game and situation (say it’s a tournament) those two may just check it down hoping that one of them will knock out the other two at a minimal cost to either. Also depends heavily on what each hand is.
True, but possibly a level of detail that will confuse the OP. I deliberately gave a simplified version that’s easy to understand.