Texas Holdem Poker No Limit betting rules, How does Bet, Raise and by what value it is increased?

Question

I am creating Texas Holdem No Limit game and been able to create multi-player game play. I am however struggling to understand the bet limits/rules. I have tried playing the game on GOP3 but it created more confusion

I put some data to understand on Google Docs

Is there any tool/spreadsheet to understand the bet sizing and calculate how Bet/Raise work and how much should it be increased and how much goes in pot.

[EDIT] The link provided as duplicate does not answer my question as I am also looking for tool/spreadsheet and that link does not explain possible scenarios.

Answer 1

I am unsure why your spreadsheet is so complex, I think there's a fundamental error in approach.

There are only three rules to follow (one of them uncommonly used):

We will use $1/$2 as example.

1. The extra amount you need the other players to call (aka, raise amount) must be at least the Big Blind.

   During Preflop, if you are no one of the blinds, your raise amount must be at least one Big Blind extra. So basically $4 is the total amount ($2 to call big blind, $2 extra for the raise).

   Similarly, at flop, the first original bet must be at least $2.

2. Any reraise amount must be at least as much as the last raise amount. So preflop, if anyone raise to $6, the raise amount would be:

   $6 (total amount) - $2 (call amount for Big Blind) = $4 (raise amount)

   Thus your reraise total must be at least:

   $6 (amount to call current raise) + $4 (reraise amount) = $10 (total amount)

3. Any all-in that does not result in at least 50% of the mini-raise is NOT a raise but a call (thus you cannot reraise it).

   So three players, you and two others.

   On flop, you bet (raise) $10, the second guys goes all-in for $14, third guy calls $14, the round IS OVER. Because you do not get another action since the second and third guy technically only "called" your bet.

   However, if you bet (raise $10), the second guys goes all-in for $15, third guy calls $15, now you CAN RERAISE (if you want). Technically the second and third guy raised you because $15 (their amount) - $10 (your raise) is at least 50% of $10 (mini-raise amount)

These are the rules. I checked the first video and it doesn't break any of the rules.

Answer 2

The minimum bet is the size of the biggest blind. The amount of a blind depends on the limit of a game.

The blind is simply the first bet so keep in mind the rules for the blind bet when it comes to calculating a minimum bet size are the same as any other bet that might be made.

A second bet, called a raise follows the same rule, the minimum size of the raise is always the size of a bet made.

The maximum size of a bet or raise, is whatever amount the player making the bet or raise has in their stacks to bet with.

In poker vernacular a bet and a raise are two different things, but they are the same thing, in the sense that what the minimum raise is, is predicated on what happened before. If nothing happened, there was no bet, the minimum of the bet is the amount of the blind. If their was a bet, the minimum raise is the size of that last bet.

The minimum size raise is not a aggregate of the sum of the previous action. If a player bets 1, player B then raises to two, the minimum raise is still one. I will give you some examples a little further down in the post.

In any poker game their may be two or more rounds of betting. A round is when the action goes around the table, and each player acts on their hand, Than more cards or seen and another round goes around. What happens on a round does not affect the minimum bet size. The minimum bet size resets to the size of the big blind at the beginning of each round.

In Hold em, The first round is when your given two cards. Next round is when a flop of three cards is put out, than next round is when the fourth card (the turn) is put out, and last round is when the fifth card (the River) is put out. The minimum bet size is the same at the start of each of these rounds, starts at whatever the blind is.

Some examples of the pattern: Bet is one minimum raise is one. If the bet is one, a player raises to 3, The raise is two, 1 is a call and two is a bet. When someone raises they are technically calling and making a bet. When a player makes it three he is betting two and calling a one dollar bet. At this point the minimum raise is two.

If someone bets 50, and then some one makes it 200, the raise is 150. The raising player is calling 50 and raising 150. The minimum raise then becomes 150.

When determining what the size of a raise is, you first subtract the amount of the call. Just to be clear, a call is when someone matches a bet. if a bet is one, you match the bet with one, that is a call.

Whenever a raise is made, the player making the raise is calling and betting. You need to consider that when your figuring out what the actual raise is.

Think and terms of call and bet, instead of raise. A raise is a call with another bet on top of it. This bet on top of a call, is at a minimum the last bet, and if the bet is more then the call, it becomes the new minimum for the bet on top of a call.

If the action goes, Player A makes it 10, Player B makes it 50, Player C makes it 100, Then player A Makes it 250 When it gets back to her, the following is what has happened with the minimum raise bet size at each step of this action.

Player A has called the blind and bet an amount over the blind. If the blind was 1 his call was one and his bet was 9. If the blind was 5, his call was five and his bet was five. We will use the later, say the blind was five his raise was five, the minimum bet did not change.

Player B has a minimum raise amount of 5. If he was not to make another bet, his call would be ten. Since he made it 50, the call minus his bet, is 40, which is the new minimum bet at this point. 40 being the amount he bet over the call.

Next Player C puts in 100, The minimum raise is now 50. His call was 50, and he bet another 50 on top of that, the amount over the call he bet is the new minimum, of 50. The amount the next player must call before raising, the over bet is now 100.

Back to player A and he makes it 250, He has called 100, and made another bet of 150 more to come up with 250. The new Minimum raise is now 150.

Test question for OP: Player A with a call and minimum raise could of made it as little as ____, when the action got back to him?

On bad TV shows they sometimes say "I will call you and raise you" in the fictional poker game. And this is an absolutely correct way to describe the mechanics of a raise. In a real world poker game, if you intend to call and say call you cannot proceed with a raise. When someone makes a raise they don't call it a bet they call it a raise.

If you want to put it down to code, A raise is a bet, over the amount of a call, two separate pieces of data that need to be calculated against each other to come up with the amount of the minimum raise at any particular point in the game. What a normal bet has in common with a raise bet, they are the bets that hold the value of the minimum raise. If I was naming the variable I would call it LastBetAmount, since the last bet amount is the minimum raise.

Answer 3

For an example, I'll be using $25/$50 blinds. Starting with preflop, any player may put in exactly $50 total (in which case the blinds might put in $25 or $0 respectively). If no person has yet opted to raise above $50, then one has the option of raising to any total of 2x the big blind or higher ($100+). If someone does raise to X, where X >= $100, then the remaining players can fold, or call the total wager of X or re-raise to a minimum of X + (X-50). Call this new wager Y and now someone can re-raise to a minimum total wager of Y + (Y-X)...this pattern can continue until all players in the hand have either folded or exactly matched the highest wager on the table.

For each successive street, the betting allowed is similar except that there are no forced blind bets and the first bet must be a minimum of $50. The next raise must be at least 2x the first bet. Any additional raises must be at least (most recent bet) + (most recent bet - previous bet).

The exception to these rules, which is important to note, is that sometimes a player may not have enough chips in front of him to make a full raise or even call. In this case, the player is allowed to put however many chips he has as their bet. For the remaining players, they must match at least the all-in player's bet to stay in the hand. There are two scenarios then: 1) the all-in player's bet meets the minimum threshold outlined above to be considered a raise--now the remaining players can still re-raise just as before, or 2) the all-in player's bet does not meet the definition of a raise--now the remaining players cannot re-raise unless they would have otherwise been allowed to if the all-in player had never acted (i.e., the player with chips left hasn't acted yet or is facing a raise from a third player).

In summary, with B as the big blind amount: 1st wager amount can be B or >= 2B [call this wager X1] 2nd wager can be X1 or >= X1 + (X1 - B) [call this amount X2] 3rd wager can be X2 or >= X2 + (X2 - X1) etc, etc but each is capped at the player's full stack amount.

Action closes when everyone who hasn't folded has matched the highest bet so far or has wagered all their chips. A player can always raise the wager whenever it has been legally raised above the last wager they made (so it is not the case when an all-in player had less than the legal raise amount). This can be generalized to the blinds before the flop if you don't consider their blinds as wagers already.

Answer 4

Ok so Limit Hold'Em (LHE) has very easy betting structure and raising structure. There are three things you need to remember for LHE, the size of the big blind, which betting round it is and how many bets have been made.

Often you'll see LHE games in a casino referred to as something like 2$/4$ LHE, which represents the max bet for the first two betting rounds, also the big blind, and then the upper limit for the final two betting rounds. So you are aware the 2$/4$ are referred to as the small bet and the big bet.

Let me explain betting rounds here, in all major forms of Hold'Em we have 4 betting rounds, pre-flop, flop, turn and river. As I mentioned, in LHE this is important to keep track of because as said above the limits at which a player can bet is increased.

During a betting round a maximum of 4 bets can be made, the forth bet is often referred to as the capping the bet.

So an examples of a complete hand to give you an idea, let's say we have a table of 4 players at 2$/4$ LHE. Player A is the SB of 1$, B the BB of 2$, now C has a choice to fold, call or bet. Let's say C bets, which means they raises by 2$ to make it 4$ to play, we now have had 2 bets, meaning players can only make another 2 to cap the play.

Let's say Player D raised and Player A too, the bet is now called at 8$. Player B can only call or fold, they can no longer raise.

So we deal a flop, betting continues the same way on the flop as it did pre-flop. Let's say we reach the turn card. Betting has now changed in terms of limits. The bet size is now twice the BB so 4$. Let's say Player A wants to bet, they now have to bet 4$. The hand continues as normal through each player, with a capped bet of 16$ for both the turn and the river.

So to summarise:

• First two betting rounds, pre-flop and flop, uses the small bet size (same as the big blind value)
• Final two betting rounds, turn and river, uses the big bet size
• We are always capped at a maximum of 4 bets per betting round, i.e. max bet amount is 4 times the small bet size for the first two betting rounds and 4 times the big bet size for the final two betting rounds.