2005 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure title
An Official World Poker Tour Event

Poker Game Limits

Poker Betting Types

The game of poker offers a wide range of betting types, and it’s important to know what type of betting is involved in the game you’re playing before you sit down at a poker table. There are three broad categories of poker limits and they include limit, pot limit and no limit.



Limit Poker

This is the most common form of betting type in poker. In a limit poker game, predefined betting increments must be adhered to during each of the betting rounds in the game.

The standard terminology used to identify a limit poker game is to state the limits. For example, a limit poker game with $2 and $4 bets is referred to as "$2/$4 Limit." Those wager amounts are used in the following way:

 

  Bet/Raise Increment
Pre-Flop $2
On the Flop $2
On the Turn $4
On the River $4

Usually a casino or cardroom will have an established maximum for the number of times the bet can be raised in a limit poker game. The most common limit is three raises. Therefore, in a $2/$4 Limit Hold’em game the largest bet you would have to call in the first two rounds is $8 (original $2 bet plus three $2 raises) and the largest best you would have to call in the last two rounds is $16 (original $4 bet plus three $4 raises).

Pot Limit (PL) Poker

This is the next step-up in betting limits. In a Pot Limit game, the maximum amount that can be bet by any player is the amount of money already in the pot . For the initial bet on any round this number is easy to identify. Note that unlike limit forms of poker there is typically no limit on the number of raises allowed per round.

However, some math is involved once someone wishes to raise the bet in a Pot Limit game. This is because the intended raiser’s ‘call’ of the current bet is included in the amount they are permitted to raise. Let’s look at an example:

Let’s assume three poker players in a Pot Limit game bet and raise in the following sequence.

Player Action Pot Notes
    $10 Assume Pot is $10 from previous rounds
Player #1 Bets “Pot”
($10 bet) 		$20 As the first player to bet, Player #1 bets the maximum amount allowed. This is called ‘betting the pot’ or $10 in this example.
Player #2 Raises $30
($40 total bet) 		$60 Player #2 is permitted to call the $10 and raise $30 because the pot is now $30 ($20 pot + his $10 call). Therefore, this player places a total of $40 into the pot.
Player #3 Raises $100
($140 total bet) 		$200 Player #3 is permitted to call the $40 and raise $100 because the pot is now $100 ($60 pot + his $40 call). Therefore, this player places a total of $140 into the pot.
Player #1 (b) Calls $130 $330 Player #1 must fold or call the combined raises of $30 from Player #1 and $100 from Player #2
Player #2 (b) Calls $100 $430 Player #2 must fold or call the raise of $100 by Player #3
    $430 After a bet and two pot-sized raises, the pot ballooned from $10 to $430.


No Limit (NL) Poker

This is the form of poker most commonly seen in televised poker tournaments such as the World Poker Tour series and the World Series of Poker. Many players consider No Limit to be the truest form of poker because you can bet any or all of your chips at any time. One caveat is that any raise must be at least the amount of the previous bet or raise, and any initial bet must be no less than the amount of the Big Blind for that hand. There aren’t any artificial betting restrictions that would prevent you from losing all of your chips in a single hand. Note that unlike limit forms of poker there is typically no limit on the number of raises allowed per round. While limit poker is still far more popular in cash games than no limit, more and more card rooms, online and live, are now offering no limit cash games, often with low blinds like $1-2 or $2-4.