Another player goes all-in with $50. Always start the Main Pot first with the shortest chips. Say out loud 'John has $45 four ways, plus the blinds. That will be $180 plus the $10 Blind. Mary has $5 more, 3 ways, that makes $15 in the first side pot. All the rest is in Side Pot #2.' You now have 3 pots. Any more betting goes into pot #3.
In Texas Hold'em, the highest combination of five cards wins the pot.

How to Split Pots

On the surface, splitting pots is easy enough: simply take the pot, split it evenly, and each player takes their winnings.

This is especially easy when two players have the same five-card hand: each takes half. If it's three or four or more players all with the same hand, divide the pot by the number of players, and each player collects their winnings.

Pot 1: 29 (pot one could also be called the 'main pot') pot 2: 6 (pot two could also be called 'side-pot 1') pot 3: 4 (pot three could also be called 'side-pot 2') The sum of all these pots gives the total pot (39). Pot 1 has 29 because player 4 is eligible for up to '6'. How many players did put up 'up to 6'?

But things can get tricky fast.

High-Low

In high-low games, the easiest split pot is when one player wins the high and the other wins the low. Here, you simply divide by two and each player collects their winnings. A player with the best high and the best low hand 'scoops' the whole thing.

But, especially in games like Omaha High-Low, when lots of players might all have the same low or the same high, the pot needs to be split along more complicated lines.

For instance, more than one player might all have the same low hand--this is easy enough if a board contains lots of low cards. On the other hand, multiple players might share the same high--for example, they are all able to make the same straight.

In these cases, the easiest way to manage the pot is to first split it in two: one high pot and one low pot. Then, the players who share the same high divvy up the high pot, and the players with the same low divvy up the low pot. (This is the same way you would divvy up a pot in a game like Chicago: split the pot in two, with one half going to the player with the high spade in the hole, and the other half going to the player with the best five-card hand--and yes, sometimes those halves get scooped by the same player!)

The most common example of this is quartering: two players have the same low hand, but one has a better high hand. So they split the low, and one player takes the high, so that one player gets 75% of the whole pot and the other gets 25%--a quarter. But it's not uncommon for three or more players to play for the same high or low, so players might get one sixth or one eighth or an even smaller fraction of the pot, while one player ends up take two-thirds of five eights for themselves.

Sidepots

When one player is all in, they can win the main pot: the pot that every active player can theoretically win. But other players can continue betting amongst each other by placing their chips into a side pot: a pot that only some active players can win. And yes, sometimes the side pots can get even bigger than the main one!

On the surface, side pots are relatively simple: the main pot usually gets stacked near the player who is all in, and the other two players can bet into the side pot. But, when multiple players are all in, there might be more than one side pot: for instance, a player is blinded all in, another player goes all in on the flop, and other players continue betting through the river and turn. Imagine what can happen if there are three or four or more players all in at the same time, with side pots stacked all around the table, while two big stacks keep betting into one another--complicated enough at a Texas Hold'Em table, and even more so at a High-Low game, where all those pots could get split up even more!

In these cases, the key is remembering who can win each pot. At casinos, this is simple enough, since the dealer sorts out each pot. But at home games, it's crucial to remember who can win each pot: every player can win the main pot, including the player who went all in first; then the next side pot can be won by everyone who could match the next all-in bet; and so on and so on. If it sounds complicated, don't be afraid to take extra steps to sort it out--if you play a lot of Omaha High-Low, you might consider keeping a pad and paper at the table!

When you’re facing a bet on the river in Texas Hold’em, the vast majority of the time you will be contemplating a call to win the entire pot.

On the odd occasion however, you will be contemplating a call to split the pot. An example of this would be facing a bet on the river on a board of K K K 3 3 with a hand like AQo.

Annoyingly, you know that you can’t win the hand. The best outcome if you make the call is to share the pot with your opponent, rather than folding and definitely not winning anything.

So, how do you work out whether or not you should call to split the pot?

Firstly, let’s look at the math for calling to win a full pot.

Whether or not we make a call on the river depends on two things:

The size of the bet in relation to the size of the pot.
What we think our chances are of having the best hand.

We then compare the bet and pot size (giving us the pot odds) to our estimation of our chances of having the best hand to work out whether or not a call is profitable.

A quick example.

We are on the river and our opponent bets $5 in to a $10 pot. This means we have to call $5 to win a $15 pot.

Therefore, our pot odds are 3 to 1, or 25%. (see the poker odds conversion table for more on this)

This means that we need to think we have the best hand here at least 25% of the time (or 1 time in 4) to make the call profitable. Easy stuff.

But what if the best we can hope for when we call is to split the pot, instead of winning it entirely?

Math of calling to win a split pot.

If you can only hope to win half the pot, you simply half the total pot size when working out your pot odds. So using the same example above where our opponent bets $5 in to a $10 pot:

Calling to win the full pot = $15 to $5 => 3 to 1 => 25%
Calling to split the pot = $7.5 to $5 => 1.5 to 1 = 40%

This means that instead of needing to have the best hand at least 25% of the time, you now need to have to have the “best” hand 40% of the time to break even.

I say “best”, but we’re not going to have the “best” hand because it’s only going to be equally as good as our opponents if we are hoping for a split pot. To put it another way, we need to think we are making the correct decision at least 40% of the time.

So as a rule of thumb:

If you’re thinking of calling to split the pot, work out your pot odds using half the current pot size and go from there.

Converting the ratio odds in to a percentage is the tricky bit, but that will come with time and practice. You should ideally be familiar with the process of needing the best hand X% of the time (as mentioned at the start of the article) already anyway. This is merely a slight variant of that.

hoRatio is a handy downloadable program that converts ratio odds in to percentages and vice versa.

Example of the strategy behind calling to split the pot.

The game is $50NL.

Preflop.

We are dealt 3s 3c in the BB. Everyone folds to the button who raises to $1.25. The SB folds and well call with our pocket pair.

Flop: T Jh Qc ($2.75)

Our opponent checks and we check behind.

Turn: T J Q K ($2.75)

Our opponent checks and we check behind again.

River: T J Q K 9 ($2.75)

The 9 on the river puts a straight on the board.

Our opponent bets $2 in to the pot. Should we call to try and split the pot, or fold?

Poker Split Pot Texas Holdem Odds

Working out the minimum % time we need to be correct.

We need to call $2 to win a $4.75. However, because we can only