Limit? Spread Limit? Pot Limit? No Limit?
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A quick look at the three main betting structures for poker.
Betting is as important to poker as water is to a fish. Without betting, it's, well, it just isn't poker. But how is betting organised?
Well, the main ways of organising a betting round are Limit, Spread Limit, Pot Limit, or No Limit.
Limit poker, like the name suggests, the bets are set at a certain limit. Typically the Big Bet is twice the Small Bet and there are an even number of betting rounds at each limit. For example, 1/2 limit holdem is holdem played with bet sizes of 1 and 2 - the lower limit is for the first two betting rounds and the higher limit is played for the last two.
Spread limit is typically played in home games, although a few cardrooms still spread some spread limit games. I have not found a spread limit game on the Internet. In spread limit, you can choose how much you want to bet, up to a certain cap. For example, a in 1-5 spread limit game you can bet between 1 and 5 chips.
Pot Limit is somewhere between Limit and No Limit poker. Basically, you are allowed to bet up to whatever is in the pot. This includes money you put in to call any previous bets. For example, if the pot is 100 after the flop, and my opponent makes a pot sized bet of 100, I can call his 100 (taking the pot to 300) and then raise 300 more. It's still announced as a raise - don't try any of that "call... and raise" rubbish. Manipulating the pot size is a real skill in deep stack (where you have lots of chips compared to the blinds) Pot Limit, and is why some people think the WSOP main event should be PL not NL.
No Limit. This is what you were waiting for right? The Caddilac of poker. No Limit poker is perhaps more accurately described as "table limit", since you are "limited" to betting what you had on the table at the start of the hand. At any point you can go allin and push all your chips into the middle. This is what makes No Limit exciting, and difficult. Online sites tend to offer capped buyin NL (and PL) games these are usually referred to by the size of the buyin usually - 25NL is a no limit game with a maximum buyin of 25, 100PL is a pot limit game where you can't buy (or top up to) more than 100.
So that's how betting limits work.Comments on Limit? Spread Limit? Pot Limit? No Limit? |
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