THE POT
The pot goes to the highest hand at the showdown.
Split Pots
Because of the community cards, Holdem has more ties than most other forms of poker. An example would be if the board contains four Aces and a King.
It’s not possible for anyone to hold a card in their hand that is better than that hand. Even if a player has a King in his hand, every player can play the King on the board and tie.
In some home games, it’s common to break ties by giving the pot to the player with the high card for the sixth card, using the Bridge rank of suits (Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, clubs) to break ties in ranks.
That’s not the generally accepted way to do it in poker. In a cardroom ties aren’t broken-the pot is just divided among the active hands.
There are other ways for a tie to result in Holdem other than all players simply playing the five cards on the board as their best hand.
Players frequently have the same two pair, or the same straight, or similar ties. And example of this would be if the board contained an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Deuce.
Here any player who has a 10 in their hand has an Ace-high straight, and if more than one player holds a 10, then the pot is split among them.
Poker hands are five-card combinations. No tie-breakers are used. The pots are just split when players tie.
Side Pots
Caseeno poker is played with the table-stakes rule. This means that you cannot be required to call a bet for more money than you had on the table before the hand began.
Similarly you aren’t allowed to bet more than you had on the table before the hand began. If a player runs out of money during a hand, and more than one other player remains, then a side pot is created.
A player who runs out of money is said to be “all-in.”
If a player is all-in and only one other player remains active, then the cards are simply dealt out, you have a showdown, and the best hand takes the pot.
If two or more other players are still active, then action between those players can continue. When a player runs out of chips, then the pot at that point is pushed aside by the dealer.
This pot contains all the chips for calls and bets up to the amount corresponding to the all-in player’s calls. All bets and calls after that point are kept in a separate pile until the showdown.
This is the “side pot.” The original pot is called the “main pot.”The side pot is awarded to the best hand among the players who put money into that pot.
The all-in player cannot win any of that money. Once the side pot is distributed, the winner of that pot shows down with the all-in player.
The best hand of those two takes the main pot. If more than one player goes all-in during a hand, multiple side pots are created. The showdown starts with the players active in the last side pot created.
The Rake
In a casino, the casino will collect a fee for playing poker. This fee is generally called a “rake” because most cardrooms collect the fee by raking a certain amount from each pot.
Whenever this is the procedure, the amount is typically either 5 or 10 percent, up to a maximum of $3 to $5. In most games you can count on almost every pot getting large enough so that the maximum rake will be taken.
Two other collection methods are in common usage: a time charge and button charge. “Time charges” are a fixed amount, collected from each player every half hour.
They typically range from $3 to $ 7 per half hour, depending on the limits of the game. Button charges are collected each hand from the player on the button; $3 is a typical charge.
Sometimes the button charge is a live bet; it counts as a call of the initial blind bet.
Entering a Public Cardroom / The Play of the Game / The First Betting Round
