Matthew Cluff

Poker Blinds Charts

All You Need to Know

Names of Table Stakes

You can find a chart of the most common stakes found between online and live, along with some remarks about them:

Understanding the Different Stakes

The smallest game that can be found online is $0.01/$0.02 games, with a maximum buy-in of $2.00.  The very least, on the larger sites with higher traffic.

Mini & Maxi Buy-ins for Various Stakes

All cardrooms and websites are going to have different minimum and maximum buy-ins for each stake.

Poker Terminology for Live Play

“going south” refers to taking money off the table, but it is also highly unethical.

“Going north” refers to a player makes an initial buy-in that exceeds the maximum.

Comparing Stakes and Win Rates

100 NL
200 NL
500 NL
1,000 NL
5,000 NL

10 NL
20 NL
50 NL
100 NL
500 NL

Online Poker    Live Poker

Live Vs Online Table Stacks

Game Selection

As players should go by their bankroll to determine the proper games they can play, playing at the highest stake possible (as per your BRM rules) isn’t always the best idea.

The “Bigger” Blind

Straddler will be first to act preflop, and player who will still have the option of checking/betting/raising/folding once the action gets to him as if he was a player in the blinds.

A Word on “Antes”

An ante is where either one player or all players must put forward a certain amount of chips into the pot before a hand begins, simply to add more “dead money” into the pot. 

There is always a multitude of games to select from.

online or live