Sunday, March 22, 2009

Options in how to handle Pot Limit betting

House rules differ in how they handle Pot Limit betting as described below (excerpt from Wikipedia's article on betting in poker).


Some pot-limit games make exceptions to the method described above when calculating the maximum raise in the betting round before the flop:

* Some structures treat the small blind as if it were the same size of the big blind in computing pot size. In such a structure, a player can open for a maximum of four times the size of the big blind. For example, if the blinds are $5 and $10, a player may open with a raise to $40. (The range of options is to either open with a call of $10, or raise in increments of five dollars to any amount from $20 to $40.) Subsequent players also treat the $5 as if it were $10 in computing the pot size, until the big blind is through acting on the first betting round.[7]
* If the action folds all the way around to the small blind, the maximum amount the small blind can raise is also not universally agreed upon. Some games treat the big blind as a "raise" of the small blind for the purpose of calculating the maximum raise—the small blind is allowed to call the big blind, and then make a pot sized raise of twice the big blind, for a total bet of three times the big blind. Other games treat the blinds as dead money for the purpose of calculating the raise, and allow the small blind to make the same size raise as any other player, i.e. a total bet of three times the big blind plus the small blind.


So if there are no objections I would like to switch to the method where the SB is treated as the same size as the BB so that the opening bet can be 4 times the BB instead of 3.5 time the BB. In a .50/1 game this would mean an opening bet of $4 instead of $3.50. For example, an opening raise and two calls followed by folds from both of the blinds would result in 4 + 4 + 4 + .50 + 1 = 13.50 but the SB will be rounded up to 1 so the pot pre-flop would be an even 14 and all betting afterwards would be based on a $14 pot. Handling the betting this way would speed up the game by making the pot bet calculations faster.

I would also like to explicitly adopt the method of the SB being able to raise to 4 in an unopened pot.

Would people be OK with treating the SB as a BB in our Pot Limit games?

6 comments:

Ryan said...

I have no problem with that.

Unknown said...

Yes, I think this is a good idea. Counting in 50 cent increments is goofy.

Sushi Cowboy said...

Agreed. In .50/1 games the quarters do end up cluttering the pot a bit. Using just the buck chips will keep the pot a little more tidy on top of streamlining the process of figuring out pot sized bets and re-pots.

Marshall said...

I am on board.

chuck m said...

I like this change.

jtrey333 said...

I'm Jeh and I approve this message.