Hi Andy,

What is a "kill" and how does it work?

A good question,

This often confuses players who have played a lot of home game poker who are first venturing into casinos. Some cardrooms run some games with either a full "kill" or a "half kill." A kill means that the stakes are doubled, a half kill means increased 50%, for the next hand, under certain circumstances. In split pot games like Omaha eight-or-better, the kill usually occurs if someone scoops and entire pot that is bigger than a certain minimum size. In one-way games, the kill usually occurs if the same player wins two consecutive pots.

Whenever a situation where a kill is called for occurs, the lucky winner of the scooped or two consecutive pots must post a special big blind at the new level. Because posting a blind isn't an advantage (you're forced to place money into a pot before you see your cards), the kill is, in effect, a kind of "tax" on a player who has just won a lot of money. This "tax" means that if you're in one of those games where the kill occurs when you win two pots in a row, you have a slightly smaller incentive to enter a hand right after you've won a nice pot. This doesn't mean you shouldn't play your big hands, of course, but if you have a marginal holding, this creates one more reason to toss it into the muck.

To show you how a kill might work, suppose you are playing 10-20 Omaha eight-or-better with a half kill. You scoop a pot that is large enough to qualify for kill status, and you are in middle position. The game becomes a 15-30 game for the next hand (and that hand only, unless you or someone else pulls in another big scooper), and the dealer would give you a special kill button, upon which you would post a $15 big blind, even though two other players in the pot also post their regularly scheduled blinds. Normally these "regularly scheduled" blinds are the regular size (in this case $5 and $10), although I have heard of casinos that also increase the regular blind size for this hand.

What happens next is also not universal. In the majority of casinos, the under the gun player, if he wants to call, puts $15 into the pot. Let's suppose he does that, and everyone else folds until the action comes to you. In most casinos, the action passes by you--temporarily--until everyone else has had their turn, and then you have the option either to check (you're already in the pot for $15) or to put in a raise. In some other casinos, that option occurs when the betting action naturally comes around to your position.

If all of this sounds a bit confusing, it is, mostly because the casino rules about how kill betting works vary from casino to casino. The important things for you to remember are:

1) If you're in a game where winning two consecutive pots creates the kill, you have a slightly decreased incentive to enter the second pot, because you'd rather not have to post the kill blind.

2) For some reason, more players tend to enter the pot on the higher-stakes hand, probably because they figure this is a chance to get even (me, if I want to play higher stakes, I usually just sit down in a higher stakes game). If you observe this to be the case in your game, you should probably favor hands that play better against multiple opponents.

3) Because the sequence of when you get to bet or raise isn't universal, if you sit down in a kill game, it's a good idea to ask how the kill-poster bets. Don't worry if this makes you "seem like a rookie." It might cause other players to underestimate your overall skill, and more importantly, you won't be putting money into a pot when you're not quite sure where a raise might be coming from.

Again, all of this sounds complex in the abstract, but after you've been playing in the kill game for 15 minutes, it will all seem very simple.

Andy Glazer