String Bet Common Sense

I often get letters from poker players who think they have been stung by a bad ruling. In many cases, they are right. There are lots of poker rulings made every day, and a number of them are going to be poor ones. But bad rulings are not just a result of inexperience of the decision-maker; many decision-makers lack common sense. Here is a reader's letter to me. Of course, the cardroom for this event he describes will be concealed.

This is from a $15-$30 limit hold'em game. "I have pocket aces under the gun and raise. Two cold-callers and the big blind come in. The flop is J-9-rag, two-suited. The big blind goes all in for one chip. Thinking that the most I can do is complete the bet, I throw in three chips and announce, 'Complete.' Ruling from the floor: All I can do is raise or call. A raise would be a string raise. Therefore, all I can do is call the one chip, not put in three chips. So, everybody gets to see the next card for one chip."

This ruling has a number of elements that are simply contrary to common sense. Let's break down the decision into its components and take a close look at them.

First, look at the house rule. Poker rules are not universal, and the rule governing the situation in which a player goes all in for less than half a bet has exceptions in some localities. However, the overwhelming majority of cardrooms and virtually all tournaments use the rule that a bet of less than half a full bet may be either called or completed. Very few places allow a full raise or a complete-and-raise here. So, the rule in the cardroom where this took place is a nonstandard one (assuming the floorperson's decision was actually in accordance with that cardroom's rules).

One of the reasons the standard rule allows only the completion of a small all-in bet is that some cardrooms foolishly let a player put in all of the chips in front of him, rather than have the denominations that are too small for the game kept out of the pot. If someone playing in a $15-$30 game goes all in for $13, you would much rather have the bet completed to $30 than raised to $43. But suppose you are playing in a sensible cardroom that requires that all-in bets be kept in $5 increments for a $15-$30 game. Is there an advantage in letting the small all-in bet be raised? None for the house, as far as I can see. Since when does the house want to speed up the action? So, I do not care for this cardroom's house rule that says you must raise a small all-in bet and cannot complete it.

A nonstandard rule should not penalize a visiting player who is ignorant of the special rule being used. One thing that could be done is to post the rule (but all too often, these places do not even know they are using something peculiar). At the very least, the cardroom should make sure a visitor is not victimized by his failure to know a local rule that is not posted. In this case, the player certainly was victimized. Every player at the table received information that he had a good hand, and paid zero to get it.

Now, let's talk about whether putting in two chips when three are needed to raise is a string bet requiring the money to be retracted. The purpose of the string bet rule is to stop a player from "calling," receiving information from his opponent's reaction, then adding more chips to change the wager to a raise. If a player obviously is trying to raise the pot and puts in almost enough chips to raise, this should be treated as if he has announced a raise, and he should be required to put in the small remaining amount to make the wager correct. This is the rule that I introduced at Hollywood Park Casino, and it was loved by all the players and is becoming generally accepted as the proper way to handle the situation. The rule is basically this: "When you have put in an extra half a bet or more beyond the amount needed to call, this is equivalent to announcing a raise and the wager must be brought up to the proper size."

Technically, what happened to the person involved in the story is not exactly the situation covered in my string bet rule. The player was not trying to raise the pot, but it was obvious that he was not just calling and then changing the wager from what people thought it was. It was obvious that he thought an option had been selected that was allowable in a cardroom with regular rules. And it was obvious that the string bet rule was invoked against him simply because the decision-maker did not understand how to protect a newcomer against being a victim to a local rule that he could not be expected to know.

I have seen a similar situation arise in pot-limit play. Someone bets $125. A player – who obviously is a rookie poker player – throws eight $25 chips into the pot and says, "Make it $200 straight." The dealer says, "You have to make the bet at least double the original wager." So, the rookie puts $250 into the pot. Now, someone says, "String bet! Get a ruling." Quite often, the poor player is not allowed to raise the pot. I find this to be a terrible ruling. You are not protecting newcomers properly if you rule this a string bet. He did not string bet. All he did was inadvertently put in too small an amount to make a legal raise. The right ruling is that he must make the wager the minimum proper size of $250. Do not allow the table to find out that the newcomer has a good hand and pay nothing for this information by forcing the wager to be retracted. Do not give the player a choice of whether he wants to raise or just call. Do not allow the player to make his wager more than the minimum needed to raise. Do not give him a choice of putting in $50 more or throwing his hand away. Simply tell him he has to finish raising the pot by putting in the proper amount to do so. This is what you would do if he said "raise" and was short a chip or two. It's the same idea. No one with a sense of fairness would object to this ruling. The only whiner over the decision is the shot-taker who wants to get a string bet rule invoked when this is not what happened.

When poor rulings are made, many will follow the syndrome of the decision-maker failing to use common sense in applying the rule. No attempt is made to try to understand the reason for a rule's existence or the circumstances under which it should be invoked.

The string bet rule is one of the worst understood rules in poker. You would think the purpose of the rule was to snare the unwary so the angle-shooter could get a card cheaply. The rule protects players against what looks like a call turning into a raise. When a player goes all in for one chip and the next player makes it three chips, this is not a string bet. When a player increases a $125 wager to $200 with eight $25 chips, this is not a string bet. This is not a call being turned into a raise. The player simply put an improper amount for a raise into the pot out of ignorance of the rules. Everyone at the table knows the player likes his hand and wants to increase the amount of the wager. Forcing him to take back the money he put into the pot is the epitome of unfairness. Simply bring the wager up to the amount the rules require.

Editor's note: Bob Ciaffone's new book, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, co-authored with Jim Brier, is available now (332 pages, $25 plus $5 shipping and handling). This work and his other poker books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker, can be ordered through Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons. E-mail [email protected] or call (989) 792-0884. His website is www.diamondcs.net/~thecoach, where you can download Robert's Rules of Poker for free.