No Limit Poker Rules
If you've spent the time to become familiar with the Limit Texas Hold 'em Poker rules, you won't need to learn very much more to understand the basics of
No-Limit Texas Hold 'em Poker. Make sure you spend time on this page before you return to this section.
Just like Limit Poker, No-Limit involves blinds. With UltimateBet's No-Limit poker games, you have a choice of $.10/$.25 and $.25/$.50 blinds. However, from here, the way betting works in limit and no-limit change dramatically.
In No-Limit poker, any player is allowed to raise any amount he or she has in front of him at any time. If the blinds are $5-$10, and the first player to act has $500 in front of him, and wants to go "all-in" with a raise of $490, he can do just that, even if it would be considered highly unusual.
The only confusing concept for many No-Limit poker involves the minimum size of raises allowed. The raise must always be at least the size of the previous bet or raise. In a game with $5-$10 blinds, the first player into the pot could not bet a total of $15, because that would only be a raise of $5. The minimum bet in this situation would be a bet of $20, which is a raise of $10.
In the likely case that the first person to raise makes a somewhat larger bet, for example, a bet of $40 (which would be a raise of $30), the next player could fold, call the $40, or raise. If the next player raises, he would have to place at least $70 in the pot, because his raise would have to be at least as much as the previous raise. The only upper limit on the size of his raise is the number of chips he has in front of him when the hand begins.
It's important to note that players can not bring additional chips to the table in the middle of a hand, but can always (unless they have run into their daily, weekly, or monthly limit) decide to bring more chips to the table in between hands.
If a player bets more chips than you have in front of you, you are not forced out of the hand. You are allowed to call for whatever number of chips you have (this will place you "all-in"). If no one else is in the pot, the bettor simply takes back his excess chips, and the hand is played to conclusion without any additional betting. If there are other players remaining in the pot, it is possible that a side pot may be created.
