All In Poker Series General Rules & Policies

DECISION-MAKING

  1. Tournament Host reserves the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, even if a strict interpretation of the rules may indicate a different ruling.
  2. Decisions of the Host are final.
  3. The proper time to draw attention to an error or irregularity is when it occurs or is first noticed. Any delay may affect the ruling.
  4. If an incorrect rule interpretation or decision by a host/dealer is made in good faith, All In Poker Series has no liability.
  5. A ruling may be made regarding a pot if it has been requested before the next deal starts (or before the game either ends or changes to another table). Otherwise, the result of a deal must stand. The first riffle of the shuffle marks the start for a deal.
  6. If a pot has been incorrectly awarded and mingled with chips that were not in the pot, and the time limit for a ruling request given in the previous rule has been observed, the host may determine how much was in the pot by reconstructing the betting, and then transfer that amount to the proper player.
  7. The same action may have a different meaning, depending on who does it, so the possible intent of an offender will be taken into consideration. Some factors here are the person’s amount of poker experience and past record.
  8. A player, before he acts, is entitled to request and receive information as to whether any opposing hand is alive or dead, or whether a wager is of sufficient size to reopen the betting.

PROCEDURES

  1. Tournament Host will decide when to start or close any game.
  2. Only one person may play a hand.
  3. No one is allowed to play another player’s chips.
  4. Players must keep their cards in full view. This means above table-level and not past the edge of the table. The cards should not be covered by the hands in a manner to completely conceal them.
  5. Any player is entitled to a clear view of an opponent’s chips. Higher denomination chips should be easily visible.
  6. After a deal ends, dealers are asked to not show what card would have been dealt.
  7. A player is expected to pay attention to the game and not hold up play. Activity that interferes with this such as reading at the table is discouraged, and the player will be asked to cease if a problem is caused.
  8. A non-player may not sit at the table.
  9. Speaking a foreign language during a deal is not allowed.

SEATING

  1. You must be present to draw your seat card & receive your chips.
  2. At the start of the tournament, players will receive a seat card for their table position. At the start of the tournament the button will be awarded to the player in seat 10.
  3. In starting the game, the player who arrives at the table the earliest gets first choice of remaining seats. Host/Dealer may reserve a certain seat for a player for a good reason, such as to assist reading the board for a person with a vision problem.

MISDEALS

  1. The following circumstances cause a misdeal, provided attention is called to the error before two players have acted on their hands. (If two players have acted in turn, the deal must be played to conclusion, as explained in rule #2)(a)
    1. The first or second card of the hand has been dealt face-up or exposed through dealer error.
    2. Two or more cards have been exposed by the dealer.
    3. Two or more boxed cards (improperly faced cards) are found.
    4. Two or more extra cards have been dealt in the starting hands of a game.
    5. An incorrect number of cards have been dealt to a player, except the top card may be dealt if it goes to the player in proper sequence.
    6. Any card has been dealt out of the proper sequence (except an exposed card may be replaced by the burncard).
    7. The button was out of position.
    8. The first card was dealt to the wrong position.
    9. Cards have been dealt to an empty seat or a player not entitled to a hand.
    10. A player has been dealt out who is entitled to a hand. This player must be present at the table or have posted a blind.
  2. Once action begins, a misdeal cannot be called. The deal will be played, and no chips will be returned to any player whose hand is fouled. Action is considered to occur when two players after the blinds have acted on their hands.

DEAD HANDS

  1. Your hand is declared dead if:
    1. You fold or announce that you are folding when facing a bet or a raise.
    2. You throw your hand away in a forward motion causing another player to act behind you (even if not facing a bet).
    3. You have the clock on you when facing a bet or raise and exceed the specified time limit.
  2. Cards thrown into the muck will be ruled dead.
  3. Cards thrown into another player’s hand are dead, whether they are face-up or facedown.

IRREGULARITIES

  1. If it is discovered that the button was placed incorrectly on the previous hand, the button and blinds will be corrected for the new hand in a manner that gives every player one chance for each position on the round (if possible).
  2. You must protect your own hand at all times. Your cards may be protected with your hands, a chip, or other object placed on top of them. If you fail to protect your hand, you will have no redress if it becomes fouled or the dealer accidentally kills it.
  3. If a card with a different color back appears during a hand, all action is void and all chips in the pot are returned to the respective bettors.
  4. If two cards of the same rank and suit are found, all action is void, and all chips in the pot are returned to the players who wagered them (subject to next rule).
  5. A card discovered faceup in the deck (boxed card) will be treated as a meaningless scrap of paper. A card being treated as a scrap of paper will be replaced by the next card below it in the deck, except when the next card has already been dealt facedown to another player and mixed in with other downcards. In that case, the result will be a misdeal.
  6. If you play a hand without looking at all of your cards, you assume the liability of having an irregular card.
  7. One or more cards missing from the deck does not invalidate the results of a hand.
  8. Before the first round of betting, if a dealer deals one additional card, it is returned to the deck and used as the burncard.
  9. A card that is flashed by a dealer is treated as an exposed card. A card that is flashed by a player will play. To obtain a ruling on whether a card was exposed and should be replaced, a player should announce that the card was flashed or exposed before looking at it. A downcard dealt off the table is an exposed card.
  10. If a card is exposed due to dealer error, a player does not have an option to take or reject the card.
  11. If you drop any cards out of your hand onto the floor, you must still play them.
  12. If the dealer fails to burn a card or burns more than one card, the error should be corrected if discovered before betting action has started for that round. Once action has been taken on a boardcard, the card must stand. Whether the error is able to be corrected or not, subsequent cards dealt should be those that would have come if no error had occurred. For example, if two cards were burned, one of the cards should be put back on the deck and used for the burncard on the next round. On the last round, if there was no betting because a player was all-in, the error should be corrected if discovered before the pot has been awarded, provided the deck stub, boardcards, and burncards are all sufficiently intact to determine the proper replacement card.
  13. If the dealer prematurely deals any cards before the betting is complete, those cards will not play, even if a player who has not acted decides to fold.

BETTING AND RAISING

  1. Check-raise is permitted and encouraged.
  2. Unlimited raising is allowed.
  3. Any wager not all-in must be at least the size of the big blind. Example: Blinds are at 200 units and the raise is 400 units, a player who re-raises must raise to at least 600 units.
  4. A verbal statement denotes your action and is binding. If in turn you verbally declare a fold, check, bet, call, or raise, you are forced to take that action.
  5. Rapping the table with your hand is a pass.
  6. Deliberately acting out of turn will not be tolerated. A player who checks out of turn may not bet or raise on the next turn to act. An action or verbal declaration out of turn may be ruled binding if there is no bet, call, or raise by an intervening player acting after the infraction has been committed. A player who has called out of turn may not change his wager to a raise under any circumstances.
  7. To retain the right to act, a player must stop the action by calling “time” (or an equivalent word). Failure to stop the action before three or more players have acted behind you may cause you to lose the right to act. You cannot forfeit your right to act if any player in front of you has not acted, only if you fail to act when it legally becomes your turn. Therefore, if you wait for someone whose turn comes before you, and three or more players act behind you, this still does not hinder your right to act.
  8. A player who bets or calls by releasing chips into the pot is bound by that action and must make the amount of the wager correct. (This also applies right before the showdown when putting chips into the pot causes the opponent to show the winning hand before the full amount needed to call has been put into the pot.) However, if you are unaware that the pot has been raised, you may withdraw that money and reconsider your action, provided that no one else has acted after you.
  9. String raises are not allowed. The dealer should enforce this string-raise law without being asked, for obvious infractions. To protect your right to raise, you should declare your intention verbally.
  10. If you put a single chip in the pot that is larger than the bet, but do not announce a raise, you are assumed to have only called.
  11. All wagers and calls of an improperly low amount must be brought up to proper size if the error is discovered before the betting round has been completed. This includes actions such as betting a lower amount than the minimum bring-in (other than going all-in) and betting the lower limit on an upper limit betting round. If a wager is supposed to be made in a rounded off amount, is not, and must be corrected, it shall be changed to the proper amount nearest in size. No one who has acted may change a call to a raise because the wager size has been changed.

THE SHOWDOWN

  1. To win any part of a pot, a player must show all of his cards faceup on the table, whether they were used in the final hand played or not.
  2. Cards speak (cards read for themselves). The dealer assists in reading hands, but players are responsible for holding onto their cards until the winner is declared. Although verbal declarations as to the contents of a hand are not binding, deliberately miscalling a hand with the intent of causing another player to discard a winning hand is unethical and may result in forfeiture of the pot.
  3. Any player, dealer, host who sees an incorrect amount of chips put into the pot, or an error about to be made in awarding a pot, has an ethical obligation to point out the error. Please help keep mistakes of this nature to a minimum.
  4. All losing hands will be killed by the dealer before a pot is awarded.
  5. Any player who has been dealt in may request to see any hand that was eligible to participate in the showdown, even if the opponent's hand or the winning hand has been mucked. However, this is a privilege that may be revoked if abused. If a player other than the pot winner asks to see a hand that has been folded, that hand is dead. If the winning player asks to see a losing player’s hand, both hands are live, and the best hand wins.
  6. Show one, show all. Players are entitled to receive equal access to information about the contents of another player’s hand. After a deal, if cards are shown to another player, every player at the table has a right to see those cards. During a deal, cards that were shown to an active player who might have a further wagering decision on that betting round must immediately be shown to all the other players.
  7. If the player who saw the cards is not involved in the deal, or cannot use the information in wagering, the information should be withheld until the betting is over, so it does not affect the normal outcome of the deal. Cards shown to a person who has no more wagering decisions on that betting round, but might use the information on a later betting round, should be shown to the other players at the conclusion of that betting round. If only a portion of the hand has been shown, there is no requirement to show any of the unseen cards. The shown cards are treated as given in the preceding part of this rule.
  8. If there is a side pot, the winner of that pot should be decided before the main pot is awarded. If there are multiple side pots, they are decided and awarded by having the pot with the players starting the deal with the greatest number of chips settled first, and so forth.
  9. If everyone checks (or is all-in) on the final betting round, the player who acted first is the first to show the hand. If there is wagering on the final betting round, the last player to take aggressive action by a bet or raise is the first to show the hand. In order to speed up the game, a player holding a probable winner is encouraged to show the hand without delay. If there are one or more side pots (because someone is all-in), players are asked to aid in determining the pot winner by not showing their cards until a pot they are in is being settled.

TIES

  1. Dealing a card to each player is used to determine things like who moves to another table. If the cards are dealt, the order is clockwise starting with the first player on the dealer’s left (the button position is irrelevant). Drawing a card is used to determine things like who gets the button in a new game, or seating order coming from a broken game.
  2. An odd chip will be broken down to the smallest unit used in the game.
  3. No player may receive more than one odd chip.
  4. If two or more hands tie, an odd chip will be awarded as follows:

BUTTON AND BLIND USE

In button games, a non-playing dealer normally does the actual dealing. A round disk called the button is used to indicate which player has the dealer position. The player with the button is last to receive cards on the initial deal and has the right of last action after the first betting round. The button moves clockwise after a deal ends to rotate the advantage of last action. One or more blind bets are usually used to stimulate action and initiate play. Blinds are posted before the players look at their cards. Blinds are part of a player’s bet. With two blinds, the small blind is posted by the first player clockwise from the button, and the big blind is posted by the player two positions clockwise from the button. Action is initiated on the first betting round by the first player to the left of the blinds. On all subsequent betting rounds, the action begins with the first active player to the left of the button.

RULES FOR USING BLINDS

  1. Minimum raise
  2. Each round every player must get an opportunity for the button, and meet the total amount of the blind obligations. The big blind is posted by the player due for it, and the small blind and button are positioned accordingly, even if this means the small blind or the button is placed in front of an empty seat, giving the same player the privilege of last action on consecutive hands.
  3. A player posting a blind in the game’s regular structure has the option of raising the pot at the first turn to act. Although chips posted by the big blind are considered a bet, this option to raise is retained if someone goes all-in with a wager of less than the minimum raise.
  4. In heads-up play with two blinds, the small blind is on the button.
  5. A new player cannot be dealt in between the big blind and the button. Blinds may not be made up between the big blind and the button. You must wait until the button passes.
  6. When you post the big blind, it serves as your opening bet. When it is your next turn to act, you have the option to raise