General question here about betting and raising that I've never understood when playing live. I always count out my chips in front of the betting line because I never want to make an error that forces me into a specific action. Let's say you get to the flop in a normal 1-2 game and we are oop and villain bets. Say I want to raise and I take a stack of chips in my hand, extend my hand past the betting line and then chop them into piles to determine my raise amount taking some back in my hand. All the chips that were orginally in my hand are required to stay in the middle of the table correct? or can some come back? I have always assumed that even when I announce a raise (without stating the amount), the chips in my hand which pass the line always have to go in the middle. Is this true in all card rooms? I imagine this is due to sting betting issues and that you could potentially change your bet sizing based on reads on your opponent.

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You need to ask your poker room about their house rules. Some let you cut them out over the line, and some don't

Just VERBALIZE your bet/raise size in advance - problem solved!

It's based on house rules. Better to announce the bet you want to make and then cut out the necessary chips. If you don't want to announce, build your bet near your cards (but not past them just to be safe) and then push your bet past the line.

I think you can carry, say, ten chips in your hand, move your hand across the line, drop five, and bring your hand back. But you generally can't drop the ten chips, then remove five.

I'm unsure if you can drop five chips, then drop the other five. I mean people effectively do this all the time when they drop a handful of chips, but there is little delay between consecutive chips falling. I wonder if you were to drop five, wait a second or two, then drop five more, whether that would be legal. I figure at some point the interval becomes long enough where you can't do that. I.e,. drop five chips, stare at your opponent for 30 seconds, then drop five more.

Agree with other posters it's best to announce. I've done the accidental string bet when chip stacking a couple times, and I've also accidentally bet more than I intended, when I counted them out from across the line and attempted to remove a couple as I hadn't grabbed the right amount. If it's more than five chips or so I tend to announce.

Related question: What if you say "raise 50" but you only dropped 9 red chips? Does verbal declaration or the actual action get precedence?

Just keep doing this no matter what room you're in.

Varies based on house rules.

Ask the floor/dealer when you start playing, or learn the hard way.
Or watch for other players bringing chips across and then bringing them back.

Or just speak up and declare your bet..

String bet is the word you were looking for.

Rules vary by room. Keep in mind that line on the table is often a "courtesy line" to show you where to put your chips within reach of the dealer. If you put your chips down past your cards but just behind the line it still may be considered a bet because of the forward motion.

Always count your chips back by the rail next to your stack, behind your cards. Move forward only those chips that you want as part of your bet. If you do not have exact change or it's too many to move all at once, clearly announce the total: "$40" or "Raise to $75" etc before moving any chips forward. If you do that, you are safe at just about any poker room in the world.

This depends on the room. In some rooms which enforce a printed or virtual betting line, once you move those 10 chips forward past the line, they are committed to the pot. In rooms where there is no line but forward action is the rule, all those chips may be committed. Moving more chips forward than you intend to bet can be considered an angle-shot.

Again this is room dependent. In a room where the dealer announces the bet amount, obviously you cannot drop more once the dealer announces how much you hve dropped. In many rooms, the amoutn of delay in a drop that would result in a string bet being called is entirely subjective, and you, as the betotr, have no recourse. So betting this way - by dropping chips one after the other is sub-optimal. It doesn't protect your action.

In the vast majority of cases, which ever occurred first is binding. So if you drop 9 and then say "raise 50", that would be a disallowed string bet. If you anounce "raise 50" and then drop 9, you are committed to 41 more. If the drop and announcement are so close together as to make it difficult to tell which came first, you are at the mercy of the dealer, except if the rooms has its own rule about precedence.

Thank you all for the replies! I appreciate the thoughtful responses. It is probably best to continue to count out my chips behind my stack as I do presently. As for verbalization I personally like to avoid it because I feel like it comes off as strong (not sure if that's really even true). The main reason I had considered chopping out a bet past the line was to feel more confident and comfortable when betting. However, given that it varies depending on the room you play it seems like an easy way to get yourself into trouble.

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Yep ... House rules ...

Typically at the 1/2 level all chips crossing the betting line (cards or an actual line) are considered part of the bet and must stay out. But I have found that when you get to higher stake games (or a reg filled room) the rule is relaxed. Whether or not that's a good thing is open for discussion, but it's more of a customer service to what's assumed to be more advanced players.

In Robert's Rules of Poker Version 11, Section 14 it states that in a cash game you can announce raise and then make multiple motions with chips to complete the raise and once you 'stop' your motion then your raise is complete.

Some tournaments (not intentionally) allow 'pump fakes' since they don't consider chips 'in the pot' until they are released. This would allow sliding out a big stack and then possibly removing some from the top as long as you don't let go of them in the process. This 'practice' is certainly considered bad ettique. GL

What? No. In rooms where you can cut out chips and bring some back, you can do this at all levels, including 1/2.

Maybe you meant that in rooms where it's NOT allowed, sometimes it's still allowed at the high stakes, but you said it in a very confusing way if so.

While this is true, and is what I wish all rooms used as their rule, in reality I don't think I've played in a single room where this was the case.

Dinesh,

That's the way it used to be in California when I started playing live no-limit in the early 2000s, but it has been many years since that was the case anywhere I'm aware of.

However, it's still very lax in Bay Area rooms compared to what people write about here in other rooms. There's a lot of cutting off smaller stacks from a big handful of chips, adding/subtracting a few chips to/from what was initially cut out, etc - but all just from the chips you took out to the betting area initially, not going back to your main stack.

Most of the places I have played are exactly that way too - bring out a handful of chips, cut them, fix things, add a few or remove a few, etc.

As long as you're not eyeballing your opponent while you do it (and sometimes even then), no one cares or complains. People are generally happy to let you finish up your bet however you want and then react when it's their turn.

Having said that, none of my regular rooms have a strict betting line. If I played in more rooms like that, I might see more strict betting compliance and enforcement. But who wants that?

This is not true at the Commerce Casino. You can grab a stack drop half of them in the pot as a bet/raise and bring the rest back in your hand.

Because casinos have different rules, I would never recommend cutting chips across the line or putting a fistful in your hand across. You're asking for a headache.

I do it literally every session with no issue. It's about knowing house rules, not assuming the most hostile set so you can avoid learning them.

You just started playing live, you don't know all the rules, you have played I just a very few rooms...the best you can do in threads like these is read and learn. Much of what you say is wrong and most of the rest just adds confusion to the thread.

Real answe to op,s question is that it is completely room dependent.

This is the answer. I've played in rooms where the line plays. You can bring 10 chips over and take your sweet time placing them on the felt... it won't matter because every chip is going to be part of the bet anyhow.

I work in a room where the line does not play. Forward motion is the rule, and as a dealer, it gives me lots of latitude as far as ruling on string bets, betting intent, etc. For the record, if a player brings 10 chips, drops 5 in a row along the felt, and then immediately drops 5 more in a parallel row, this is not a problem. It's not like they're doing it in a shifty way and trying to get a read - if anything they're making my job easier because players can quickly identify 2 rows of 5 chips whereas a single row (or stack) of 10 chips is difficult to count at a glance.

In my room, I've also ruled (and been supported by the floor) that if a player pushes a stack of chips forward in a deliberate fashion, right up to, but not across the line, that it is a binding bet. Forward motion plays.

What I do know, from every single room where I've worked or played, is that if you make a clear verbal declaration ahead of time, before you touch your own chips, you'll get to handle the chips any way you want and your bet will be in effect just the way you wanted it. And I don't mean muttering "50" and then picking up a stack of a hundred and then fumbling your way to a $50 bet. I mean making eye contact with the dealer, clearly stating your intention, and then seeing the dealer's acknowledgment.

Bolt,


Yep, plus the other big advantage of doing that - the action can continue before you've finished (or even started) cutting out your chips.

WHY?

smells like your angle shooting
announce the bet or count behind the line.

Yeah man, wouldn't want to do anything to makes you look like an angleshooter, like pretending you think a player intended to minraise.