No Limit

Limits define the betting structures used in poker. The types of limit you play determine how and how much you're allowed to bet and raise at the table. And the difference between the various limits is huge.
In online poker you can always see from the name of a given table what limit is played at that table.

No Limit or just "NL" is – like the name says – betting with no limits.
Unlike any other limit, No Limit has no restrictions to how much a player can bet or raise. At any given time a player can bet any given number of chips. Should you as a player choose to bet all your chips, you can, and that's called an "all-in".
This betting structure makes No Limit poker a very aggressive game with much more bluffing and semi-bluffing than when playing any other kind of limit.

The only limitation in No Limit really is how little you are allowed to bet or raise. This limitation is set by the size of the blinds.

To illustrate how it works, we'll look at a table called "NL Texas Hold'em $1/$2". This means, that game is Texas Hold'em, the limit is No Limit, the small blind is $1 and the big blind is $2.
You're now sitting in the position right after the big blind, and you want to raise.
The small blind is $1 and the big blind is $2, and in No Limit – as well as in Pot Limit – the smallest bet or raise you can make as the first to act is exactly the size of the big blind. In this case it means, that if you intend to raise, you'll have to raise it up to at least $4.

Because we're playing No Limit, there's no upper limit to how much you can raise, and in this situation you can therefore choose to raise up to anywhere between $4 and what you have left in your stack.
To better illustrate how a reraise works, we'll assume that you have now raised to $6. On the table there's now the small blind of $1, the big blind of $2 and your raise of $6.

The player sitting after you now wish to reraise, and the limit being No Limit this player could right there shove in the entire stack and go all-in. But the least amount he can raise is in fact $10, and this is because in No Limit the least amount you can reraise with is exactly the same as what the previous player has raised with.

In our example you raised to $6 in the position immediately after the big blind. In reality this meant that you raised the $2 big blind by $4 to make it $6 in total. These $4 now dictates the minimum reraise – in this example the player after you can minimum raise to $10 – your $6 plus the original raise of $4.

When talking about raises there are two ways to declare it. Either you say what you intended to raise to – meaning the precise amount in chips you want to invest. Or you state how much you want to raise with – meaning how much more on top of any previous bet or raise you intend to invest.
In our example here, the player acting behind you will either "Raise to $10" or "Raise $4".


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