Poker Room Rules for Ring Games

This page contains general rules and policies for playing poker in the online PokerStars ‘poker room’. These rules apply to ring games (which can be referred to as cash games when played for real money).

You can find detailed rules and strategies for the many poker games offered at PokerStars in the How to Play Poker section. Below is a general categorization of game types, followed by rules and policies that are applicable to all the games available in the PokerStars software. 

In addition to the general poker room rules, you should refer to the detailed ring game rules, ring game limit structures, and cash game rake information.

Poker Rules and Policies

There are many poker game variants to play at PokerStars, and each game type has its own rules. There are community card games like Hold’em, Stud games where cards are dealt to each person, Draw games where players are dealt cards but can exchange them, and high-low split games where the pot is divided between the best high and low.

However, there are also rules that are shared among all PokerStars games. In any basic poker game, players make bets, choosing from several available actions:

• CHECK - If a wager has not been made on the current round of betting, a player can check. This passes the action to the person sitting immediately to the left of the checking player. Checking doesn’t forfeit your interest in the pot, just the immediate option to bet. If all the players active in a hand check during a betting round, that round is considered to be complete.
• BET - If a wager has not yet been made in the current round of betting, a player can bet. If a player chooses to bet, the player sitting immediately to the left of him or her (and any subsequent players) may fold, call, or raise.
• FOLD – A player that folds thereby gives up all interest in the hand. The folding player cannot make any further bets during the current poker hand, and also cannot win the hand.
• CALL - If a wager has been made on the current round of play, a player may call. In order to call, you must match the current bet made by your opponent(s).
• RAISE - If a wager has been made on the current betting round, you can raise. This means that you match the current bet, and then bet an additional amount. All of the subsequent players will need to call your raise or make a further raise (i.e. re-raise) to continue in the hand.

In each round of bets, the wagering continues until all players have checked (if applicable), matched bets by players acting before them, or folded. Once the wagering round is complete, the next dealing/betting round starts, or the hand is completed.

A “showdown” takes place if the final bet or raise on the last round of wagers is called. The players remaining in the hand compare holdings to determine a winner. It may be the case that there is no showdown. If a player bets or raises, and no active players choose to call the wager (i.e. everyone folds), there is no showdown. In that scenario, the full pot is awarded to the player who bet or raised.

Showing or Mucking Hands

At the end of a hand, the remaining players can choose whether to reveal their cards:

• Muck your winning hand
  
  If only one player remains in the hand before showdown, that player can opt to show their cards or not show them (muck them). In the game software ‘Options’ menu, you can choose to never show your cards in this scenario. Otherwise, you’ll be offered the chance to show your cards after each winning hand. However, if the hand reaches a showdown, the winning hand is automatically always shown.
• Muck your losing hand
  
  In a showdown situation, if your hand cannot beat the best hand shown so far, you can opt to show your cards or muck them. In the game software ‘Options’ menu, you can choose to never show your hand in this scenario.

Every player dealt into the hand has the right to see the mucked hands that reached the showdown, upon request. You can see these mucked hands in the game software ‘Hand History’ and ‘Hand Replayer’. Only the players dealt into the hand can see these mucked cards. The ‘Hand History’ can be accessed from the ‘Requests’ menu in the game software lobby, while hands can be replayed by clicking ‘Visualize’ in the ‘Instant Hand History’ window or the ‘Replay’ button at the poker table. You can also request real money hand histories via email.

Table Stakes and All-In

All the games at PokerStars are played with "table stakes", which means that during any hand you can only bet and raise with the chips that you already have in play at the beginning of that hand. Part of the table stakes rule is the “All-in” rule, stating that you cannot be forced to forfeit your hand in a situation where you don’t have enough chips to call another player’s bet.

If a player doesn’t have sufficient chips to call a bet, that player is declared “all in”. That player will be eligible for the portion of the pot up to the point of his final bet. All of the further action among the other players occurs in a “side pot”. The all-in player is not eligible to win the side pot. If there are several all-ins, there can be several side pots. However, the all-in player will be eligible for the main pot, and therefore cannot be forced to fold from the hand.

An all-in player will not be eligible to win any amount greater than the pot after their final bet has been matched by another player. If the player’s all-in bet is greater than the amount of chips held by one or more of the other players still active in the hand, the excess part of the bet is either returned to the all-in bettor, or if the bet can be matched by one or more active players, it will form one or more side-pots. After that, any remaining excess amount will be returned to the original all-in bettor.

Playing Speeds When Multi-tabling

Players who choose to play multiple ring game tables at once are expected to limit the number of tables they play concurrently to a number at which they can reliably act in a reasonable period of time. While some poker decisions take longer than others, as a matter of courtesy it is inappropriate to frequently keep others waiting due to attention being focused elsewhere.

Players who play more than four ring game tables at a time and take significantly longer on average to act will receive a request to speed up their play. If slow play continues for an additional month after such communication, individual players may be limited to playing fewer tables concurrently. Players who have their table limits reduced may have them increased again by acting sufficiently faster over a month long period.

Conversely, players who frequently play the maximum allowed 24 tables and act significantly faster than average will be allowed to play more than 24 tables concurrently.

All PokerStars-initiated reductions and increases in these table limits will be enacted based on statistics that calculate a player’s average time to act over a month-long period. Table limits are not increased due to player requests. Players wishing to have their limit lowered may do so by emailing support@pokerstars.co.uk.

Please contact us at support@pokerstars.co.uk with any questions on the above.