Poker Basics and Poker Betting

The poker game begins before the cards are dealt when each of the players are placing a bet in the pot. The initial poker betting can be done in two ways, either by placing an ante or a blind. Here you can find explanations about those two poker betting terms.

If the poker game has an ante, each player puts a set amount of money in the pot, before the dealer starts dealing the cards. Usually, the antes include small amounts of money. The ante does not consider as a bet.

The other option of initial poker betting is by placing a blind, a forced bet, which its amount is predetermined. It is called blind because the bet is placed by the players before they saw any of the cards. Usually the two players to the dealers left pay the blinds, the player closest to the dealer puts a little blind, while the second player to the dealers left puts a big blind. The blinds are considered as the players bets.

After the initial cards are dealt, the first betting round begins. If it is a game with an ante, the first player has to choose between checking and betting. If you choose to check, it means you pass the bet to the player to your left. The next player, can either call, raise or fold. Another poker betting option is a checked around round of betting, in which all the players have chose to check and no bets were added to the pot.

There are four common poker betting structures, which depends on whether you play poker in a casino cards room, at home or in an online poker room. Here you can read about the common poker betting structures: spread limit, fixed limit, pot limit and no limit.

The spread limit is the poker betting structure mainly used in poker home games. The player in a spread limit game can bet an amount of money within a set limit, for example between 1 dollar and 5 dollars. If a player chooses to raise his bet, his raise has to be higher than the former player raised bet.

Fixed limit poker games are the most common in both land based and online casinos. The amount of bet you can place in a fixed limit poker game is set to each round of betting. It means that if you are playing a 2-4 dollars fixed limit poker game, for example, you would be required place 2 dollars on the first two rounds of betting, and 4 dollars during the last rounds of betting.

If you are playing a pot limit poker game, you cannot raise more than the amount of the current pot. This poker betting structure can be a bit confusing and cause players to spend large amounts of money.

No limit poker games are the games you have seen on TV. Basically, it means that there is no limitation regarding your amount of betting. You can place all your chips as a bet at any of the poker betting rounds.