What happens when you have no chips left during a hand.

Side Pots

A player is said to be all-in when he has bet all his remaining chips before the hand is over. Contrary to some old movies scenes, a player cannot bring more chips or money to the table during a hand. This is called table stakes. In other words, you will never be able to play for more than what you have in front of you during a given hand. Of course, when the hand is over, you can buy more chips if allowed in your game (eg. if you are not playing a freezeout tournament).

So, what does happen when you have no chip left before the showdown? For the game to be fair, you obviously cannot bet $1 at the beginning of a hand and win a $3000 pot after your opponents raised big throughout the hand. Fairness dictates that you can only win proportionally to what you risked - that is, $1.

Therefore, when you went all-in for $1, you were eligible to win what was in the pot at that time, along with the possible following calls of your bet from your opponents. This way, your possible gains remain in proportion with what you put into the pot.

However, there is no reason why your opponents, who are not all-in, should not go on normally with playing the hand, and keep on betting and raising. In order to know who can win what at the end of the hand, the part of the pot the all-in player can win is put aside, and called the main pot. All further betting goes into another pot, that the all-in player cannot win, no matter what; it is called the side pot.

The play continues as normal, until the hand is over. If it ends before the showdown, then the player left logically wins the side pot, since there is nobody left who can contend for it, beside him. Then, both this player and the all-in player show their hand, to see who is going to take the main pot. Note that even if the all-in player has four aces and his opponent a pair of deuces, the all-in player cannot win the side pot. He will of course win the main pot, though.

If the hand goes to the showdown, after the last betting round of the variant, then the remaining players show their hand to see who will get the side pot. Then, the all-in player shows his hand too, if he can beat the other players for the main pot.

There can be several side pots, if more than one players moves in during a hand. The different pots are always contested from the last side pot to the main pot. That is, if there are a main pot, a side pot of $20 and a second side pot of $10, then the last side pot (of $10) will be decided first, the the $20 side pot, and eventually the main pot.

Example:

Four players in a $1-$2 No Limit Holdem game. Player A has $80, player B has $100. Player C has $50, and player D $10. Player A posts the $1 small blind, and Player B the $2 big blind.
Player C raises all-in (he has a pair of queens). It’s player D’s turn. He calls for all his chips, that is, $10, with ace-ten. The first side pot is created, as player D cannot play for the whole pot. The bet of player C is therefore divided in two: $10 that are going into the main pot, and $40 into the side pot. It’s now player A’s turn.
Player A looks at his cards and finds two black jacks. He thinks he can beat player C, and is not too concerned about player D, who is in for only $10 - the side pot is bigger and more important to him. Player A chooses to move in for $79 (he posted $1 before), in order to deter the big bling from playing this hand. From this $80 ($79+blind), $10 go into the main pot, $40 into the first side pot, and $30 into a second side pot.
Player B now breaks into a big smile, and says “I hope they are going to hold…” and turns two aces while he calls the $79 raise (he adds $78, since he already posted $2 for the big blind). Player B, who also has $80 in front of him (blind included), put $10 into the main pot, $40 into the first side pot, and $30 into the second side pot.
Since there is no money left to bet (all the players are all-in but player B), the cards are dealt up to the showdown. The flop contains two tens and three unimportant rags.
The second side pot is decided first. It contains $60, and only player A and B can win it. Player B takes it with two pairs, aces over tens.
As for the first side pot, both player A, B and C can win. It contains $120. Again, the best hand is aces over tens, and player B takes this side pot.
Now, the main pot. By definition, everybody in the hand can win the main pot. It contains $40. This time, the best hand is player D’s, with trips tens. He got lucky, and take the $40 main pot.

Special Rules

There are some special rules for all-in cases, as we are going to see.

The first is that the minimum raise rule in Pot Limit and No Limit - saying that a bet or raise must at least be equal to the previous bet or raise, or at least the blind - cannot prevent a player from moving all-in. Say someone bets $20 to you, and you only have $30 left. A normal raise should be to $40 minimum. But since you will be all-in for $30, you can make a $30 bet, even though it was $20 to you. Note that this is a special case: if you had had $50, you would not have been allowed to bet $30: you would have had to choose between a $20 call, or a raise to $40 or more.

Moreover, note that we said “$30 bet”, not raise. This is another rule: as the “raise” was incomplete, it does not re-open the betting. This simply means that the players who already called the $20 bet before you are not allowed to raise, even though they will have to decide if they call the extra $10 from your all-in, or fold. However, someone who haven’t called the $20 bet yet can still raise even after your $30 all-in. If someone does so, the betting is definitely re-opened, and everybody can now raise again.

Why this strange rule? Well, say that you have $101 in front of you, and there has been a $100 bet in front of you, with several callers. Now you can move in, as we have seen. If your all-in re-opened the betting, then the player who made the $100 bet could now raise again. However, for all practical purposes, he would be raising a $100-ish bet - that is, his own bet. In essence, that would allow him to raise himself. That would amount to a store raising the prices after you paid but before you left the place: if you refuse to pay the supplement, you must leave the goods there. Obviously, that would not be right.

Maybe you got further questions brought about by this rule. For instance, in our $20 example, what is the minimum raise amount, for those who have not already called: $20, “ignoring” the all-in, or $30, taking the all-in into account? Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to this yet, as each cardroom has its own rules. You are invited to read Bob Ciaffone’s articles on the subject though (or wait for an article here on that topic).

Regarding limit poker, most cardrooms consider an all-in raise to re-open the betting if the raise is at least half the normal raise. If, in a $10-$20 Limit Holdem game, there is a $10 bet on the flop and someone moves in for $14, the betting is not re-opened - but a $16 would re-open the betting.

To conclude, it is strongly advised to know the rules of your local cardrooms, and adjust your play accordingly, to avoid facing raises that you didn’t expect to be possible - or face your opponents with the threat of possible reraises after a short stack moves in.