Explanation of Pot Limit
Both cash games and tournaments typically feature three main forms of betting structures .
No Limit – In this format, players have the flexibility to wager any amount at any point during the game, even if they wish to bet more than what is currently present in the pot. There is no restriction on the number of bets or raises allowed within a single round.
Pot limit – Here, players can wager an amount up to the current size of the pot at any moment, but cannot exceed it. Much like no limit, there is no upper limit on the number of bets and raises that can happen during a round.
Fixed Limit – In this type of game, players must place bets in predetermined sizes, which may vary between a small and a large bet depending on the stage of the game. There is also a set limit on the number of raises permitted during each round, usually consisting of one initial bet and three additional raises.
Example of Pot Limit used in a sentence -> While Omaha is predominantly played using a pot limit framework, it may occasionally be played under both no limit and fixed limit structures.
How to Incorporate Pot Limit into Your Poker Strategy
Since we don’t have the ability to overbet In pot limit games, it's crucial that we begin accumulating the pot with strong hands during the initial rounds. If we neglect this strategy, our opponents may easily control the pot size by merely calling our bets.
Even though it's possible to ask the dealer to compute a pot-sized raise for us, having the ability to calculate it ourselves is very beneficial. While figuring out a pot-sized raise is fairly simple, it does require practice to become instinctive.
Example – Determining a Pot Sized Raise
At the flop, the pot contains $100. If our opponent makes a bet of $50, what's the maximum legal raise allowed in a pot limit version of poker?
Initially, one might think the pot stands at $150, leading to a maximum raise of an additional $150 for a total of $200. However, that's not how pot-size raises are calculated. We can verify our calculations by inspecting the odds our opponent would face on a call if our raise were indeed pot-sized.
Pot: $100
Villain bets $50
Hero raises to $200
Our opponent would need to call $150 into a total pot of $500 (after the call). This would imply $150/$500 = 0.3 or a 30% pot odds. This is close, but not quite accurate.
The key is to first visualize making a call and then assessing the total pot size. If we simply call our opponent's bet, the new amount in the pot would be $200 – this is the maximum raise we can claim. If we then increase our bet by an additional $200 on top of our opponent's $50, our total wager would amount to $250. Let's quickly do the math to check it:
Pot: $100
Villain bets $50
Hero raises to $250
In this case, our opponent would face a $200 call into a new total pot of $600 (after the call). This results in $200/$600 = 0.333 or 33.33 pot odds. This is precisely the 2:1 odds we would anticipate when encountering a pot-sized raise.
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