Denominations in poker are tricky until you get into the swing of things.

At most tournaments we play in, you start with $1000 or $2000 worth of chips.

This can be represented by:

8 x green ($25) = $200
8 x red ($100) = $800
2 x black ($500) = $1000

If you are playing with four people you might want to start playing with $1000 in chips and see how it goes. If the game is too long, reduce the amount of money each person has. If it’s too short, throw in a few more black chips per player, or a white one at $1000. This can really add some grunt to the betting power! It’s somehow more fun to play with big denominations – it all costs the same – free – but adds to the pressure when you have $5,000 on the line instead of $50.

You start the blinds at $25 and $50, then double them every 15 minutes. In a practical sense, this means the person to the left of the dealer is called the ’small blind’. They must pay $25 before the hand is dealt. The player to the left of them is called the ‘big blind’. They must pay $50 before the deal. The player to the left of that gets to see their cards for free, but if they want to see the flop, they must pay $50, or they can raise this by a minimum of $50. The player to the left of him (the dealer in a four player game), also sees their cards for free but again must match the big blind to stay in. The small blind must add in another $25 in order to meet the big blind. The big blind can either check or raise. Sometimes the big blind folds, but that’s just silly because they have already paid $50 to see the flop so they should really just stay in unless someone has raised them. If any player doesn’t want to see the flop, they just fold by sliding their cards into a ‘muck’ pile.

After each hand, the player who was the big blind becomes the small blind, the small blind becomes the dealer and so on. It is handy to use a dealer button to keep track of who should be paying the blinds and who is next to deal.

When someone gets knocked out (after going ‘all in’ and losing), if they were to be the big blind next, it moves around to the next person – hence the saying ‘Big blind never sleeps’.

If they were to be small blind, noone pays small blind – you can’t skip it around or someone would get away with not paying a big blind. That’s called ‘Dead small’.

If the player was to be the dealer next, you have a ‘dead dealer’ and the player who just dealt deals again, but the small and big blinds are still paid by those who were due to pay.

After 15 minutes the blinds go up to $50 and $100, then $100 and $200 etc. This is so there is a better chance of players being knocked out which is a good thing in Texas Hold’em Poker where the last player standing wins.

Egg on Any questions?