Since in another thread there has been some discussion about chopping a pot, I figured I would take this opportunity to share some common shortcuts for chopping a pot that experienced high low players will probably already know, but some of you who are newer to Hi Low split games may not have seen yet.

In High Low games its common practice to leave bets in front of the players once they are heads up, and even in multiway pots you would typically leave the last round of betting in front of players.

These shortcuts are for dealing with the bets left in front of the players in two common chop situations.

One Player has High And Ties for Low with one other player (or Has Low and Ties for high) in this case one player gets 3/4 and the other 1/4:

To split the chips in front of the two players, take half of the chips in front of the player entitled to 1/4 and give them to the player entitled to 3/4 each takes back the chips remaining in front of them. Now chop the chips in the center pot as usual.

ie.

Player A has high and ties for Low with Player B. Each player has 20 chips in front of them.

Take 10 from the chips in front of Player B and give them to player A. Player A takes back his 20, Player B takes back the remaining 10 in front of him (player A gets 30, player B gets 10).

What of there is an odd number of chips in front of them ..... Ie same situation but there is 21 chips in front of each player? First take 1 chip from each player and put in the center pot, now divide as above.


Second common scenario .... 3 players 1 player has High the other two players tie for low (Or one low and two highs) one player gets 1/2 the other two each get 1/4:

The chips in front of the players should in this scenario just be the last bet.

First you give the player entitled to 1/2 the amount of chips that are in front of the players FROM THE MAIN POT and have everybody take back what is in front of them. Then divide the remaining center pot as usual.

So if this is a 4-8 game and the last round of betting was a single $8 bet there should be $8 in front of each of the three players. Take $8 out of the center pot and give it to the player entitled to 1/2. and all three take back the $8 in front of them.

I had to look at this in detail before I figured out how it worked:

$24 / 2 and then / 2 = $6 for the splitters and $12 for the winner. You gave an extra $4 to the winner and $2 each to the splitters, for $16 total on each side, allowing the bets to get 'returned'.
Winner got the extra $8 from the pot, the splitters got to keep the $2 that they would have put into the pot, to make the bets correct.

Tricky!


So, four players call, with a 3-way split. Winner gets $16, splitters have to chop $16. To allow a keep-the-bets-split, you'd have to pull from the pot:

winner: $8 + $8 = $16 from pot to winner, plus his $8 ($24)
splitters: Keep their $8 (= $24)


So, if you wanted to do it this way for any # of players, and the players won't freak out about not seeing it, you:

1) multiply the splitters' bets to get a total, then
2) Give the single player the money from the pot that brings his bet up to that total.


This should work when
a) all players have a full bet in
b) there aren't splits on both sides.



If you have full bets from all players and you have a split/split situation, such as 2 chop high, 3 chop low... you'd have to get the side with the largest split up to an even total that can be divided evenly.

So, $5 bet this time. 3-splitters total low, 2-split high. give $1 to each of the low splitters and $4 to each of the high.

Do dealers use tricks like that, without players complaining and requiring the visual split?


Now, is there a shortcut for an all-in, when the all-in is part of a split and ? .... hmmm.
I guess you could just start with the smaller base, pull the extra leftovers from bets to the side... no, pulling from the pot becomes problematic, then.

nope...... not giving an extra $4 to the winner and $2 each to the splitters.

I give $8 out of the center pot to the winner . Nothing out of the center pot fo rthe splitters

Winner is getting $16 (his $8 +$8 from center) Splitters each get $8 (their own)

so your formula is off because we aren;t splitting $24 we are splitting $32 ($24 in front of the players plus $8 we take out of the center)


Your numbers work here if you are describing one winner for 1/2 and three other players s[lit the other half

Well I would say add the splitters bets not multiply. But I think we mean the same thing.

However I would not do this. The two example I gave are by far the most frequent chops other than the 2 player even chop. Using a shortcut for the common chops tends to speed things up as after a while everybody gets used to seeing this. Other combinations are much less frequent and the confusion that may occur from your doing this may actually cause this to take longer than just bringing everything in ..... I guess it depends on your players.......


In a) above I would say "equal" instead of full. It doesn;t matter if its not a full bet. If someone went all in for $7 and got called this still works.



This would be definately take more time to explain to people than to just bring in all the bets and chop it up.

the standard chops that I explained get used .... and the players generally expect this. In fact often in the 3/4 chop the guy getting 1/4 will throw 1/2 his bet to the other guy before the dealer has even figured out who won.



yeah the shortcut is to pull the chips that make the side pot and push them where they are going first. Then distribute the main pot accordingly.

Excellent post PSandman.

Larry know I see what you were saying and yes that is another way to look at this. It is the same thing.

Related to this, here is how I chop pots, without counting, when all or most of the chips are in the middle. This might fall into the obvious category, but I have shown this to several players who adopted it.

Say you need to chop a pot two ways.

1. Divide the largest denom chips in the pot into two equal stacks.
2. If there is an odd chip, put it on one stack, and in the other stack, put enough of the next largest demon chips to make it equal the first.
3. Now make two more equal stacks of the highest demon chips left in the pot.
4. Again, if there is an odd chip, handle it as you did in step 2.
5. Do this until all the chips are divided.
6. If there is an odd chip of the lowest value, use the advice offered ad infinitum in this thread.

The key is, start with the largest chips and work your way down.

Of course, you can use the same method for chopping three or more ways. Just make more stacks.

This is exactly what I do, since I typically pull bets into the pot even when it's heads up. This method is quick and easy.

just once i want to leave an Omaha pot unstacked and at the end of the hand wwhen it should be divided into 2, just reach in and make two piles just by sight and push them (just to see how the players react).

Or in alternative tell one player he gets to divide the pot and the other player gets to choose.

Eneely, how do you have almost 6,000 posts but you're still listed as a "newbie?"

Mainly because of posts like the one you quoted.

Oh yeah, and a flush beats a straight. If you were wondering.

Thats the way we usually split a pot for those times its required in holdem. equal stacks of the same colour.

I like that where I guy splits and the other chooses

Dammit, you beat me to it!

Since I said "four callers" right there, I think that should cover it.

LL 1, Psand 0

Yeah, even though one of us was an IDIOT using the wrong word...

LL 1, Psand 1

dammit
LL 1, Psand 2... and our winner!

Am I missing something? Isn't the "shortcut" for chopping a pot to make equal size piles starting with the high denomination chips first and then push them?