All in and side pots

The all in rules in poker are simpler than they look on television: going all in means betting all your chips, and per hand you can never win or lose more than you had on the table yourself. All the confusion at the table comes from one situation: what happens when the others have more than you and simply want to keep playing? That is what the side pot is for, and we work it out step by step below.

Table stakes: your stack is your limit

Poker is played on the principle of table stakes: you take part in every hand with exactly the chips in front of you at the start of that hand. If you cannot pay a bet in full, you do not fold automatically, you may go all in for the amount you do have. From that moment you are in until the showdown without having to pay any more, whatever else happens. This rule protects the small stacks: nobody can push you out of a pot purely because they have more money on the table. How the betting rounds themselves run you can read back in the rules of Texas Hold'em.

How a side pot appears

Say Anna has $20 left, Bo and Chris each have well over $100. Anna goes all in for 20, Bo and Chris both call. The main pot now holds $60, three times twenty, and that is the only pot Anna is playing for. If Bo and Chris each bet another $30 on the turn, that extra $60 forms a side pot that only the two of them play for. The principle behind it: every player can win from each opponent at most the amount they put in themselves.

Who wins what at the showdown

At the showdown you work from the outside in: the side pot first, then the main pot. If Bo has the best hand of everybody, he takes both pots. If Anna has the best hand, she wins only the main pot of $60, and the side pot goes to the better hand of Bo and Chris. Who wins there you simply settle with the normal poker hand rankings. A side pot can therefore go to the second best hand at the table, and that is not a dealer error, that is exactly how it should be. If you play without a dealer, appoint one player to divide the pots out loud, from the outermost side pot inwards.

Several all ins, several side pots

If several players with different stacks go all in, you simply repeat the same trick. Example: Anna all in for 20, Bo all in for 50, Chris calls. The main pot gets three times $20, the first side pot gets two times $30 (the piece between 20 and 50, from Bo and Chris), and anything Chris would bet above that can only come back if nobody pays it. Anna can win the main pot, Bo the main pot plus the first side pot, Chris everything. It sounds complicated, and it is the same rule every time: only the players who paid that portion in full take part in that pot.

The small rules that cause confusion

Two details cause most of the argument at the table. First the small all in: if an all in raise is less than a full raise, it usually does not reopen the betting for players who have already had their turn. Second the showdown after an all in: if no betting rounds are possible any more, the hands are laid face up on the table and the remaining cards simply run out. Do not hide your cards then, laying them open is part of the deal. If you play with friends, agree these two points in advance; it saves trouble at the moment something is really at stake.