Advanced Betting: The title may be a little
confusing. There’s advanced betting maneuvers? There sort of
are, actually. I guess I could have called it “More on Betting”
but this is a confusing section and Advanced sounds appropriate.
See, one of the things about poker is that there are “No
Limit” games, meaning that at these games, there is no limit to
how much a player can bet at any single time in any round. One
of the things about these games is that pots then have to be
sorted to track who has money where and who has dibs on what.
Let’s say we have four players. Let’s do a chip count for
them:
Player One: 2000
Player Two: 1800
Player Three: 3600
Player Four: 4000
That’s a decent range of money there. Now, for the sake of
betting, let’s say that Player Two goes “All In” (meaning they
put all their money in the pot). Everyone that wants to stay in
has to put at least 1800 in. Note I say at least. Well, if they
want to put more in, Player Two shouldn’t have access to it, and
he doesn’t. Since he’s the person with the least money (the
“short stack”), and he’s all in, his money goes into the main
pot and all future bets go into a side pot. If Player Two wins
the round, he gets the main pot. Then, everyone else looks at
their hands, and whoever has the second best hand wins the side
pot.
Things can get confusing when multiple people with different
betting amounts all go “all in.” At that point, if Players One,
Two, and Three were all in on that round, Player Two would have
access only to the main pot, Player One would have access to the
main and one side pot, and Players Three and Four would have
access to all three pots (since they both could pony up all the
cash to play). That’s an extreme example, but it does happen.
To save your sanity, and hopefully give you a better
comprehension of what I just said, here are some illustrations:

So here's those players I told you about. As you can see,
I've given them all the chips they need to play that round. Chip
counts are marked so you can easily follow along.

Player Two goes "all in." His "1800" is added to the main
pot, and that makes the default bet that everyone has to match
or beat "1800."

Player Three matches (for now) the "1800" bet, which goes
into the main pot. That leaves him with "1800" still in his
posession.

Player Four also matches, putting his "1800" in the main pot.
That leaves him with "2200" in his posession.

Player One starts the big difficulty now. He goes "all in"
also, which puts "1800" of his chips into the main pot. But, he
still has "200" left over. That means that "200" goes into a
side pot. Player Two will get skipped since he has all his money
in already.

We'll take a moment to let the Dealer clean up the chips into
a more manageable pile.

To add to the fun (and potential confusion), Player Three
also goes "all in." Now, remember, he already put in the base
bet of "1800" that's in the main pot. That's covered. All he has
to put in now is at least "200" to match the side pot. But no,
he goes all in, so now we have the Old Side Pot, which is "200"
from any player with enough money that's staying in (which also
leave Player Three with "1600"), and a New Side Pot, which is
made up of the "1600" Player Three has left to put in.

And finally, Player Four matches all the bets. Of his
original "2200" from the prvious cycle past him, he puts "200"
into the old side pot, and "1600" into the new side pot. He is
left with "400" of his own money that, for this round, he can't
do anything with.
So what do the players do now? Since all but one person are
"all in," everyone would show their cards. The rest of the cards
for the hand would be dealt out, and everyone would wait to see
who wins. As a breakdown:
Player Two can win only from the Main Pot.
Player One can win from the main pot and the old side pot.
Player Three and Four can win all three pots, if their hands can
beat the other players.
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