Betting in Poker: All You Need to Know

Poker is one of the most respected games among players. If professional sports bettors develop sophisticated strategies for long-term profit, poker players are known not only for doing comprehensive mathematical calculations during the game but also for showing off their best poker face while at the tables.

Poker is no longer a game which you have to arrange with your friends or travel to enter tournaments as there are a number of poker sites online which allow you to play various Sit n’Go’s, tournaments, freerolls and head-to-heads. Some of these poker sites also allow you to play slots such as the Cleopatra casino game and bet on sports all under one account.

Not surprisingly, poker is said to be a game of people playing cards. In this article, we will not go into the eternal discussion about whether poker is a game of skill or a game of luck, but, instead, we will talk about the different types of betting you can find at a poker table.

Types of Betting in Poker

In short, a player has only three options in a poker game: 

1. Call: match a previous bet, also known as limp;

2. Raise: add more chips to a current bet;

3. Fold: discard the hand.

However, when it comes to the second option, there are plenty of options that make the games more complex. But those also depend on the betting structure of the game, the most popular are:

• No Limit: A player can bet all his chips at any moment; this if the format used in the most popular tournaments in the WSOP;
• Pot Limit: The highest bet is capped to the current value of the pot; usually, the most expensive games are played in this format;
• Fixed Limit: The bet amount is fixed, and the number of raises is usually capped to 3-4.

For Texas Hold ’em, the most famous structure is No Limit, while Pot Limit is mainly used for Omaha games. The Fixed Limit is more related to mixed games (Razz, Stud).

Depending on the game, each player develops a betting strategy that can be applied in both live and online games, because they both use the same structure. Such an approach may include:

• 3-bets: A 3-bet is to increase an opponent’s previous raise. A reraise in short. Called 3bet it is the third bet in a betting round;
• 4-bet: To raise a 3-bet;
• Squeeze: This is an exciting move that tries to exploit the weaknesses of the players. It consists of making a big raise after one player raises and another player calls that bet;
• Isolate: Forcing a heads-up game by making a big bet;
• Blind steal: To take advantage of the position at the table when all previous players have folded. It consists of raising from the last positions with a not very powerful hand, hoping for the players in the forced blinds positions to fold. A player raising a blind steal is making a blind defense;
• Check-Raise: To trap a player with a strong hand. The starting player checks, hoping for other players to bet and then responds with a raise.

Many players use advanced software tools or calculators to run simulations and know how to react to different situations. The previous one is only a small list of all the possible bets you can make at a poker table. As you can see, playing poker isn’t an easy game, although that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun.

Although, if you want to take poker as a career, you must master all the possible bets, learn the glossary, and adapt it to your own game style.