Pot-only betting: what changes and how to adapt
Patch-Patch has a betting structure of its own: pot-only. There is exactly one size for a bet or a raise, the pot. You check or bet the pot; facing a bet you fold, call or raise the pot. Hold'em at Patch-Patch is no-limit and Omaha is pot-limit, so if you come from either, a few habits need to change. This article goes through what pot-only does to a hand and how to adjust.
The rule, in one line
A bet is the size of the pot. A raise first calls, then adds the pot as it stands after the call: raise to = the bet you face + the pot after your call. Facing a pot bet of 60 into a pot of 60, you can call 60 or raise to 240. A stack smaller than the bet or raise goes all-in instead. The Patch-Patch rules have the full table of worked examples.
The pot triples with every called bet
When a pot-sized bet is called heads-up, the pot goes from P to 3P: the pot, the bet and the call. So the pot grows geometrically, street by street.
| Heads-up, a pot bet called on every street | Pot after the round |
|---|---|
| Before the flops: a raise to 30 at 5-10, called | 60 |
| On the flops: 60 bet, called | 180 |
| On the turns: 180 bet, called | 540 |
| On the rivers: 540 bet, called | 1,620 |
A raise grows it faster still. A pot bet P into P, raised to 4P and called, makes a pot of 9P in a single round.
The stacks are in by the river, or sooner
The default buy-in is 80 big blinds: 800 chips at 5-10. Follow the table above with 800-chip stacks:
- After the flops round each player has put in 90 and has 710 left.
- After the turns, 270 in and 530 left.
- On the river the pot bet would be 540, more than the 530 left: the third pot bet of the hand is an all-in.
If the big blind re-raises before the flops (to 90, the pot-sized re-raise of a raise to 30) and is called, the pot is 180 going to the flops. A pot bet there and a call make it 540, and on the turn the next bet is all-in.
Three-handed it is similar. The button raises to 35, both blinds call: 105 in the pot. A pot bet on the flops called by both makes 420, one on the turns called by both makes 1,680, and with 240 left each, the river is all-in.
What to do with it: decide on the flops whether this hand is one you will put all your chips in with. With 80 big blinds, two called pot bets after a raised start leave only one decision. There is little room to "see one more card cheaply": every card costs the pot.
What a call needs: one board
Facing a pot bet, you call one unit to share a pot of three. Calling is profitable when you expect to win more than a third of the final pot, and in Patch-Patch a third of the pot is exactly one board. So heads-up, call a pot bet when you expect to win more than one board on average from here, counting a split as half. The same holds for calling a pot-sized raise: it also buys a third of the final pot.
That is a high bar for draws on one board and a low one for a hand ahead on two. Scoop or split has the full table of what each result is worth.
A bluff must work half the time
Every bet risks the pot to win the pot. A bluff with a hand that can't win at showdown breaks even only if it makes the opponent fold half the time. In no-limit a half-pot bluff needs a fold one time in three; here there is no cheaper bluff. Two consequences:
- Pure bluffs are expensive. Prefer bets with a hand that can still win boards when called: a made hand on one board and a draw on another.
- Folding to a pot bet is less costly than it feels. If an opponent bluffs at you and you fold more than half the time, he profits; if you fold less, he loses. You don't need to call down with everything.
Value bets get called by better, too
A bet with a good but not great hand can face a raise to four times your bet. Before betting, ask what calls and what raises. With twelve cards each, opponents hold the strong two-card combinations more often than in Omaha: the three boards article has the numbers. A hand that is ahead on two boards and safe on them is a value bet; a hand that is ahead on one board and exposed on the others is often a check.
Checking is a real option
With one bet size, the choice is never "how much" but "whether". A check keeps the pot from tripling and lets a weaker hand bet into you. A check-raise is big: against a pot bet P into P, it makes the bet 4P, so save it for hands happy to get all the chips in.
Before the flops
The same rule applies before any board card is out:
- Three-handed at 5-10, the button opens by raising to 35 (3.5 big blinds), the only raise size. Heads-up, the small blind's raise is to 30.
- Facing that 35, the small blind's re-raise is to 115; if the small blind folds, the big blind's re-raise is to 110.
- If everyone calls, the big blind's option is a check or a raise of the pot: 30 more, to 40.
Before the flops you can't know how your twelve cards will fit three boards you haven't seen: the split and the flops decide most of a hand's worth. A raise there makes every later pot bet bigger, so a sensible default is to keep the pot small before the flops unless your twelve cards are clearly strong (several high pairs, many suited and connected cards) and to decide once you see how they fit.
Short stacks
A stack smaller than the pot can only bet or raise all-in. With 15 or 20 big blinds, a raised pot with a called pot bet on the flops leaves you all-in by the turns, so the decision is simply whether your twelve cards and their split are worth it. Buy-ins at a Patch-Patch table run from 5 to 150 big blinds.
Quick reference
- Every bet: the pot. Every raise: the bet + the pot after your call.
- A called pot bet triples the pot heads-up.
- With 80 big blinds, the third pot bet after a raised start is all-in.
- Calling a pot bet or a pot raise heads-up: worth it above one board on average.
- A pure bluff must make the opponent fold half the time.
- Decide on the flops whether you're ready to go all the way.
The bet panel does the arithmetic at the table: it shows Bet pot, Raise pot to and Call with their amounts, and All-in when the pot covers your stack.