Kill Pot

• If it's limit Omaha H/L, Ray Zee's book 'High Low Split Poker for Advanced Players' covers limit Omaha H/L and limit stud H/L. I don't know of anything written on limit Omaha high, which is a very rare game. Limit games means a lot more people see the flop and a lot less people fold post-flop. I'm sure that's going to need getting used to.
• Stakes Blinds $15/$30 Bet Sizes $30/$60 Straddle UTG only Kill Half kill.

The rules governing kill pots are listed in 'Kill Pots.' RULES OF OMAHA HIGH-LOW. All the rules of Omaha apply to Omaha high-low split except as below. A qualifier of 8-or-better for low is used. This means to win the low half of the pot, a player's hand at the showdown must have five cards of different ranks that are an eight or lower in rank.

– A pot in which the betting limits are increased, due to certain conditions being met.

Limit Poker Online

Some poker games are spread as “Kill games.” When a game is played with a kill, by rule, the betting limits are increased when certain conditions are met. These conditions can vary depending upon the type of poker game that is being played, and upon house rules. How the kill pot is played out procedurally is also subject to house rules, and these can be different from casino to casino.
Kill games are typically played with either a full kill or a half kill. The difference between a full kill and a half kill is in the amount that the limits are raised once the conditions for a kill are met. With a full kill, the betting limits are doubled, so that a 4/8 game becomes an 8/16 game, so long as the kill conditions continue. With a half kill, the limits are raised by 50% rather than 100%, so that a 4/8 game becomes 6/12. Occasionally, you will see a game with a 3 and 6 chip betting structure have a 1/3 kill. This just means that the bets increase from 3 chips and 6 chips, to 4 chips and 8 chips, when the kill is in play.
When a player meets the conditions required for a kill pot to take place, the dealer places a “kill button” in the pot before pushing it to the winning player. Possession of this button by any player, rather than the dealer, indicates that a kill pot is underway. The player who possesses the kill button is obligated to “post the kill” This means that they must post a blind wager, in addition to the game’s regular blinds, equal to one small bet at the new, higher betting limit. If the player who is killing the pot (known as “the killer”) is in the blinds, this wager will fulfill his blind obligation, in effect replacing his blind, and he will not have to post both. If the game is a full kill, the killer will typically have to post twice the amount of the big blind. If the game is a half kill, the killer will only have to post 150% of the big blind. House rules dictate whether the killer acts in turn or has last action before the flop.
The kill condition is used primarily in Hold’em games and Omaha Hi-Lo games (also called Omaha Eight or Better or O8), although you may occasionally see it used in other types of poker games as well. The kill necessarily operates differently between Hold’em and O8, because the games are so different. The most important differences are the conditions which trigger the kill, which are not at all alike.
Omaha Eight or Better is a Hi-Lo split game, which means that much of the time the best (high) hand and lowest (low) hand split the pot. However, in order for this to happen, the low hand must qualify, or by rule it cannot be considered for low. In Omaha Eight or Better, the “Eight or Better” describes the qualifier for low hands; it means that in order for a hand to be considered as a low it must contain five unpaired cards of eight or lower. If no low hand qualifies, the high hand wins the entire pot. In order for a kill pot to be triggered in an O8 game, two conditions must be met. The first condition is that the pot must be scooped by one player. This can happen either because no low hand has qualified, or because the same player has made both the best high hand as well as the best low hand. The second condition is that the pot must meet a minimum threshold, generally about ten to fifteen small bets in size. If either of these conditions is not met, the kill is not triggered, and normal play continues until one is.
The kill is triggered, quite differently in a Hold’em game. Typically, a kill is triggered in a Holdem game when a player wins two or more consecutive qualifying pots. Since qualifying takes place over the course of multiple hands in a Holdem game, a two sided kill button is used to keep track of the stages. The two stages are called “leg up” and “kill,” and they are printed as such on the kill button, one on each side. Initially, the kill button is placed on its “leg up” side, and is part of the pot. The winner of the pot retains the button and now has a “leg up.” If they lose the next hand, they surrender the leg up button to the winner of the pot. If instead they win the next pot, they will have fulfilled the conditions for a kill. This would require them to flip the button to its “kill” side and post the kill. If the killer wins the kill pot, another kill pot ensues on the subsequent hand, ad infinitum. As soon as the killer loses, the button is surrendered as a leg up button to the winner of the pot. By rule certain conditions, such as a split pot, constitute a “walk,” rather than a “win” when considering kill qualification. A “walk” simply means that there is no change in kill status, and players must carry through their buttons to the next hand dealt.
Kill games are frequently favored by the house because they can often increase the amount of revenue that the house can take in from the game. This is partly because the action on a kill pot is artificially increased through the implementation of the kill. Both the raising of the stakes and the posting of additional blinds contribute to the increase in action on kill pots. Players tend to either love or despise the kill condition, depending upon whether or not they are comfortable with the increase in action it brings.
See also straddle.
Usage: Killing the Pot, Killed the Pot, Half-Kill, Killer Posted the Kill
Previous Poker Term: Kicker
Next Poker Term: Lay Down

Continuing from my last post, I’ve got another big, basic strategy mistake I see even a lot of good players make in the $15-30 fixed limit game I play in. The mistake is this: they don’t adjust their strategy to the fact that it’s a kill game.

For those of you unfamiliar with what a kill is, here’s how it works; if a player wins two pots in a row, the next hand become double the stakes (in this case, $30-60) and the player who “killed” it has to put a live $30 in the pot (live meaning it counts as the player’s call of the big blind, as opposed to just being dead money in the pot). In most games, there is a certain amount of money the second pot has to be over in order to qualify as a kill. In our game it’s 10 times the small blind, or $150. (Here’s a link to the Wikipedia definition of ‘kill game’.)

What this means is that players should be playing more tight than usual after winning a pot. This is because you are essentially “punished” for winning two pots in a row by having to pay $30. Essentially, if you win two pots in a row, you are essentially losing one BB (big bet) (in actuality it is a bit less than one big bet because you will always have some equity in the following hand, but you’re still losing most of that bet in the long run.)

So in order to enter the pot after the hand you win, you must have a better than average hand. In other words, you should not be making a slim pre-flop raise with the intention of stealing, because if you’re in such a situation, chances are that if you do end up winning that pot and killing it, the pot will only just be over the minimum $150, and then that small pot will have $30 taken out of it when you have to put up your forced bet.

Additionally, if you do make that slim pre-flop raise and end up taking down a small pot, even if it’s not a kill, you still are on the verge of having a kill, so the very next hand you will still have to take into account these considerations again. Better to just fold the marginal hand you were thinking about raising with and get the kill off you.

No Limit Poker Free

After I’ve just won a pot, I’ll sometimes find myself in late position with a bunch of folds in front of me, looking down at K9 suited or something and then telling myself “no, just fold–it’s not worth it in this situation.”

This seems like common sense to me, but you’d be surprised how many young, aggressive players actively pursue getting the kill pot going, like it’s a badge of honor or exciting in some way to be the one to make it a kill pot. People actually seem to play looser than they usually would. People talk about “okay, going for the kill”, and some of that is just silly talk, but some of the players actually mean it. It’s also true that these players want to play higher (because the full $30-60 game only goes once a week) so they are fiending a bit for action.

And even though you yourself should be playing tighter the hand after you win a pot, you should encourage other players’ pursuit of the kill as much as you can. That kind of behavior is definitely good for the game and good for your bottom line (assuming you’re comfortable playing at the kill stakes).