Ring Game

Many people believe that poker is a game of pure chance and this is partially supported by the fact that poker is a staple in many casinos around the world. The average person considers casinos to all be net minus luck equations and therefore the average person lumps poker in with games like craps and roulette. This is of course not true at all and while poker is most definitely not a game of complete chance, there is a very large chance element in poker. On any given hand, the luckiest person will win, but over the long haul the people that are able to take advantage of good luck and downplay bad luck with sound strategy and tactics will end up winning the money over the long haul.

Ring Games

Ring games are the most popular form of poker in the world today in any variant of poker and indeed this will continue to be the case for as long as poker is in existence. It is simply impossible for any other game format to exceed ring games in popularity as you will come to realize when you understand what exactly a ring game is.

Ring games are games where the players sit around a table and just play for money, for fun or for bragging rights. In other words, when you go to a casino and sit down at a table to play a marathon session of poker, you are playing in a ring game. There are no buy-in fees and the chips that you play with actually represent real money. This is the way poker was played for years before the tournament format came along and because of the logistical ease in setting it up, it will continue to be the dominant game format for as long as poker exists.

Betting Structures

There are three primary betting structures that are used in ring games; fixed limit, pot limit and no limit.

In a fixed limit structure, betting is set up in increments with the smaller increment being half the size of the larger increment. In other words, if the small bet in a game was $1 and the larger bet was $2, the game would be a $1/$2 fixed limit game. In those games, betting for the first half of each hand would be in increments of the smaller bet, while betting for each round after would be in increments of the larger bet.

In a pot limit betting structure, a person has the ability to bet up to and including the size of the pot. In some cases, the size of the pot is not the current size of the pot, but rather the size the pot would be if the current bet was called by the player. In other words, if the pot size is $10 and the player has to call a bet of $1 before they raise, then they can raise up to $11; the size of the pot after they have called the bet.

No limit is the easiest betting structure to learn, because there are no limits! You can bet whatever you want, whenever you want. It is the most exciting betting structure around for ring games.