Just making sure

[drewjax]

I am about 95% certain I am right on this one, please tell me I am not a donk and made a bit of an ass of myself.

The question concerns the ability to reraise an allin bet in NLHE. We were playing a wild 50NL game last night. There is this one kid who is decent, very LAGgy (shocking I know), who thinks he knows it all. He wasnt even in the hand btw, but his (preganant!) girlfriend was.

Basic action is pot is raised, then a reraise allin by the girl (very short stack, like 10xBB). I am in the BB with JJ. The kid states there is no reraise possible. I was pretty sure that I could have, but I was strongly leaning toward just calling, which I did. There were then two callers of the allin reraise.

Flop comes JT4 w/ two spades. So I flopped the nuts, but a draw heavy board. I am first to act and lead out for $10 (I think about half the pot). Player to my left calls with like $14 behind; next player goes allin for $19.50. The kid, who is dealing, calls out the action and states "$9.50 more, no more raises". I state that I can indeed raise, as long as the raise was at least half of the original bet. He says no you cant it has to be a complete raise to be able to reraise. We go back and forth a little bit, and I ask if he wants to put some money on it. He says no, but that he is right. I say whatever and just call, only because the only other player in the hand only had about $4 more after the $9.50. It was really a moot point because if he was gonna play, obviously the money was going in no matter what the turn was.
When the hand was over I said that I wasnt 100% sure about the rule, but I was close. The only reason I am not certain, is because I think I remember reading somewhere that SOME casinos have the rule that it must be a full raise to be able to reraise.

So, long story way to f'n long.

IN a nlhe ring game, if a re-raise allin is more than half, but less than a full raise, can you then re-re-raise.

Thanks gang.

btw...my top set help up for the biggest pot of the night. I ended up about $100 for the night!!

[BlibbityBlabbity]

If the all in (raise) was not the size of the initial raise, then there would not be another raise possible and it would be call/fold only for the rest of the players.

ie: if the initial raise was to say $10 (raising 8-9) and she only had $15 total and pushed for $5 more on top then that kills any other raising. If she could make it $20+ (actually 18-19 I think, but it is to late/early for heavy math....like addition) to go then you could re-raise to knock out other players.

This does not come up often, but it can be a pain if it is a loose table and an all in will get too much action behind your call, leaving you with little information on the flop. Unless you flop top set that is.....

[Zybomb]

This is not always true.

In some casinos, they allow reraises if the all in is more than 1/2 the size of the original bet... in others it must be the full size or more

[BlibbityBlabbity]

right, I should have said that that is how they have it set up at the online sites. I ran into this first at FT and was pissed in a tourney thinking it was a bug that lost me a big hand...

[Invigilator]

I have read the posts a few times, and I am not sure I understand. Does this mean I could find myself in a NLH situation where I would not be allowed to shove all my chips into the middle because of the action ahead of me?

[drewjax]

Yes, there are definately situations where this happens. Not often, but usually in important situations involving large pots, allin players etc. I thought I knew the rule, but apparently it is a bit of a gray area.

I looked up what I could find in 'Cookes rules of poker'.
There he states that my thinking is correct. As long as the allin raise is at least HALF the original bet, then you can reraise. But he talks/writes in terms of limit poker, not no limit. I am not sure if this changes things.

[Talking Poker]

Certainly: Say you bet and everyone behind you folds/calls. You're obviously not allowed to raise yourself and shove your chips in.

Seems like a silly example, but what this question boils down to is was her $19.50 bet considered a RAISE or a CALL?

That is of course assuming you acted first. If you mean: drewjax bets, some preggo chica goes all in for less than a full raise more, and THEN the action is on you for the first time - of course you can shove all your chips in. But that's obvious, so I don't think that's what you meant.


Back to the situation............ In my experience, the answer is: It depends. I've seen this treated differently in different situations (and places) - most notably, tourney play vs. cash game play. Let's check the to start:

(Damn, can't cut and paste)

Well, that seems pretty clear. But that is for TOURNAMENT play, which is often treated differently than CASH GAME play. For cash game rules, you'd need to check with each house. I believe the full raise thing is the standard, but I'm also pretty sure that an all in that raises the original bet/raise more than 50% is considered a raise SOMEWHERE.

Without having established this ahead of time for a home cash game, I'd stick with the 100% full raise rule.

[Invigilator]

Okay, the bit about "...to the payer who has already acted..." clears it up. So does the "depends" part.