How poker blinds work

Blinds are the two forced bets that start every hand of Texas Hold'em. They give everyone a reason to play, they move round the table so each player pays their share, and in a tournament they grow until the game is decided. This guide covers who posts them, who acts first, and how a structure of rising blinds is built.

What the blinds are

Before any cards are dealt, the two players to the left of the dealer button put chips in front of them:

• The small blind, directly to the left of the button, posts half a bet.
• The big blind, the next seat along, posts one full bet.

Blinds are written small first: in a game with blinds of 50 / 100, the small blind posts 50 and the big blind 100. The big blind also sets the smallest bet allowed for the rest of the hand.

Without blinds, nobody would ever need to play: you could fold every hand for free and wait for pocket aces. With them, there's always something in the pot worth fighting for.

Who posts them

After every hand the button moves one seat to the left, and the blinds move with it. One trip of the button round the table is called an orbit, and in each orbit every player pays the small blind once and the big blind once.

That makes the blinds fair, and it tells you what sitting still costs. At 50 / 100, an orbit costs each player 150, which is 1.5% of a 10,000 stack. A player who folded every hand could last about 66 orbits.

Who acts first

The blinds have already put chips in, so before the flop they act last:

1. Before the flop, the player to the left of the big blind acts first. That seat is called under the gun. Action goes round to the left and ends with the small blind, then the big blind.
2. From the flop on, the first player still in to the left of the button acts first, so the small blind (if still in) goes first and the button goes last.

With two players (heads-up) the rule changes: the button posts the small blind and acts first before the flop, then last on every later round.

Calling and raising the blinds

Before the flop, the big blind counts as the bet to match. Every other player can fold, call the big blind or raise. The blinds count towards calling: if nobody raises, the small blind pays the other half of a bet to call.

If everyone just calls, the big blind has the option: they've already matched the bet, so they can check and see the flop, or raise.

In no-limit Hold'em, a raise must be at least as big as the last bet or raise. At 50 / 100, the smallest raise before the flop is to 200: the 100 to call plus 100 more. If someone raises to 300, the next raise must go to at least 500.

Why blinds go up

In a cash game the blinds never change. In a tournament, where everyone starts with the same stack and plays until one player has every chip, the blinds go up at set times. Each stretch of time is a level, and the list of levels is the structure.

Rising blinds make the game end. Early on, stacks are deep and players can wait for good hands. Later, each orbit costs so much that players have to take chances, and the short stacks are pushed all in.

An example structure

This is the structure our blinds timer suggests for 8 players with 10,000 chips each, 15-minute levels and a big blind ante. Everyone starts with 100 big blinds; by the last level a starting stack is worth only 2.5.

Blinds: small and big, with the big blind ante below from level 3. Orbit: what each player pays in blinds and antes while the button goes round once. Stack: a starting stack of 10,000 counted in big blinds. The timer adds a break every four levels.

The blinds grow by roughly the same step each level, so the pressure builds evenly. By the last level, one orbit costs 100% of a starting stack: the players still in have more chips than that, but not for long.

Antes and the big blind ante

An ante is a small payment into the pot from every player before the deal. It doesn't count towards calling: it simply makes the pot bigger, so there's more to win and more reason to play.

Collecting an ante from every player each hand is slow, so most tournaments now use a big blind ante: the player in the big blind pays one ante for the whole table. Over an orbit it costs everyone the same, and only one player has to remember it. In the structure above it starts at level 3, a third of the way in, at 300, the size of the big blind.

Blinds in a home game

• Pick a structure before you start, and keep it where everyone can see it. The blinds timer suggests one for your players, chips and time, and calls out each new level.
• Make every blind a sum your chips can pay. If your smallest chip is 25, a small blind of 10 can't be posted. Our guide to chip values and starting stacks covers this.
• Agree what happens when someone is knocked out in the blinds, and when a late arrival joins: usually they get a starting stack and are dealt in straight away.
• Watch the button. Most disputes in home games are about whose turn it is to post. A real button disc on the table settles them.

Hosting the whole evening? Our guide to hosting a poker home game walks through it from the invitations to the last hand.

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