There is a rather heated argument going on around my room and local neighborhood about what the legal minimum raise is in a NLH tournament. This is stemming from people watching the World Series of Poker main event this year.
Apparently what was happening is that at 1 million, 2 million blinds the UTG is raising to 3.6 million. This was not an all-in situation. As far as I know the minimum UTG raise has always been double the BB. So now the argument goes that someone could raise to 3 million as the minimum. As well this has spilled over into our cash games and people playing 1-2 no limit are asking to raise to $3. It was all giving me a big headache so I looked up the WSOP rules ofr 2011. I found out the raising rule. Here it is:
Rule 86. Subsection A.
In no-limit and pot-limit, all raises must be equal to or greater than the size of the previous bet or raise on that betting round. An all-in wager of less than a full raise does not reopen the betting to a player who has already acted. Exception - two consecutive all-in wagers that exceed the minimum allowable bet or raise. By way of example, player A - bets 500, player B - raises to 1,000, player C - calls 1,000, player D - moves all-in for 1,300, player E - moves all-in for 1,700. If player A calls or folds, then players B & C will have an option to raise. The minimum allowable raise will be equal to the last complete raise. In this example, the last complete raise was 500; therefore, players B or C would be allowed to call 1,700 and raise 500 for a total wager of 2,200. (The half-the-size rule for reopening the betting is for limit poker only.)
The bold, underlined part of the quote is the main reference I use. Does this not state that the minimum raise in the example I used have to be to 4 million? "Equal to or greater than the size of the previous bet." The previous bet would be 2 million. Another equal raise would make it 4 million. It seems to me that this should be pretty simple to explain but there is footage of players raising less than what many of us would consider the minimum bet.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
The 2011 WSOP rules can be downloaded in PDF form at www.wsop.com/2011/2011-WSOP-Rules.pdf