WSOP rule on min raises

Started by Spence, November 19, 2011, 05:13:27 AM

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Spence

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

chet

Spence:

Dave Lamb would be the PERFECT person to respond to this issue.  He has been a Floor Supervisor at several recent WSOP events.

DAVE???????????

Chet

Nick C

Spence,
I'd like to see the video. That can not be correct. I've had problems with many of the raise rules used for no-limit and pot limit but a raise (not all-in) of less than the full bet is not allowed in any form of poker.

Chet,
It would be nice to get a response from Dave or anyone on the board but they haven't responded to anything in over 150 posts!

JasperToo

Spence, any chance you could post a link to said video?  I am with Nick in that it has to be a mistake.  Either a mistake of the dealers and floor allowing it during a round or more likely a mistake by ESPN in announcing what the blinds where or some such thing.

The answer to your question is: Yes, a raise would need to be 4mil.  and you read the rule correctly.  It's pretty standard and has been that way forever.

Gotta love T.V. to make things so much easier for us >:( ;D

Spence

I've yet to see any footage online but a few of my friends have PVR's. If they still have anything saved I may be able to upload it. Might take a while though.

Oddvark

I just took a glance at the tournament updates on wsop.com, and their reporting shows that standard opening pre-flop raises of 3.4-3.5 million took place when the blinds were at 800K/1.6M/200K.  (Of course, with the ante, the SB would have to post 1M -- 800K blind plus 200K ante -- but the actual blind levels were 800K/1.6M)

http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates.asp?tid=11497&grid=821&dayof=2267&rr=5&curpage=8

When the blinds increased to 1M/2M, the standard opening raises went up to 4M-4.25M:

http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates.asp?tid=11497&grid=821&dayof=2267&rr=5&curpage=5

JasperToo

Thanks for the links Oddvark.  So, Spence, looks like folks were reading the 200K as 2 mill or some other such error.  That should put an end to the heated debate your folks are having.  Good luck!

Spence

#7
Hmmm... That MUST be what they were thinking. Nothing else makes logical sense. I'll pass that along and see what they say. Some of those that are arguing with me are more educated than others but I get the feeling that they will still refute it. :-\