No Limit, Pot Limit & Tourney Hold'em

While limit hold'em is the most common, you'll also run across no-limit and pot-limit hold'em.

If you've seen telecasts of the World Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker, then you're familiar with no-limit hold'em. In a no-limit game, the blinds and the button work exactly as they do in limit hold'em, but at any time a player can bet as much as he has in front of him. In no-limit poker, you will frequently hear players announce "all-in", meaning they're betting all the chips they have. In pot-limit poker, on the other hand, the maximum a player can bet is limited to the amount currently in the pot.

Pot-limit and no-limit are referred to as "big-bet" poker, and you can find tournaments featuring both types of play. Tournament players "buy in" by putting up a fixed amount. Some tournaments have buy-ins as low as $5; others, like the final event of the World Series, are as high as $10,000.

The buy-in gets you a certain number of tournament chips. To keep the action moving in a tournament, gradually the blinds increase, which forces players to play hands and not just sit and fold. Once players run out of tournament chips, they're out of the tournament, and play continues till there is only one player remaining -- one player sitting on top of a whole mountain of chips.

Tournaments have a pay-out schedule that determines the percentage of the total winnings awarded to each place. In smaller tournaments, for example, first place might get 50% of the total price pool, second place 30%, and third 20%.

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