The Complete Guide › Module 4: Side Pots & Multi-Way All-Ins

How to Build Side Pots When Players Go All In

True Poker Dealer · Module 4, Lesson 1

Side pots exist because of one rule: a player's cards only entitle them to win an amount equal to what they put in. Once a player is all in, anything bet beyond their stack by the remaining players has to go somewhere they can't touch — that's the side pot. This lesson covers the safe, reliable way to build one correctly, every time. (Already comfortable with the all-in button? Good — this is what happens after it gets thrown.)

Why side pots exist

Every player who puts an equal amount into the pot compared to everyone else is eligible to win all of it. The moment a player's last chip goes in and they can't match any more action, they're all in — and from that point on, they're only eligible for what's already in front of them plus an equal share of whatever anyone else who matched their amount contributed. Betting that happens above their stack, between the remaining players, builds a separate pot they have zero claim to. That's the entire concept. Everything else in this lesson is just the mechanics of executing it cleanly.

Cherry-picking: building pots in order

Work from the shortest all-in stack up. Find the smallest amount any all-in player is eligible for, then take that exact amount from every player still live in the hand — this becomes the main pot, or the next side pot in line if a smaller one already exists below it. Dealers call this “cherry-picking”: picking the same amount out of every stack rather than scooping and re-sorting the whole mess at once. If a second player goes all in for more, repeat the process with their amount against whatever's left on the table, and so on up through however many all-ins happen in the hand.

Build every pot before you deal the next community card. Don't wait until the hand is over to figure out the math. Lock in the main pot and every side pot’s size as the all-ins happen, so that by the time you reach showdown there's nothing left to calculate — only cards to read and pots to push.

Keep the pots physically separate on the table. Never let a side pot touch or slide into the main pot, don't set one where the board needs to go, and rearrange the board if you need the room. If a stack gets knocked over and the chips mix together, you've lost the information that made the split provable in the first place.

Reading the showdown: outside pot first

At showdown, work from the outside in — evaluate and award the newest, smallest side pot first, then move inward toward the main pot last. The players eligible for that outside pot show down against each other only; the player who's all in for just the main pot isn't part of that comparison at all. Once the outside pot is awarded, move to the next pot in and repeat, until you finally reach the main pot that every remaining player is still eligible for.

Leave every hand face up in front of the player who bet it rather than stacking them all together in the middle of the table — with more than two or three hands in play, a pile in the center becomes impossible to read correctly. It's also not your job to react to anyone's hand: no sympathetic “ooh, sorry,” no congratulations, nothing that could look like you're rooting for a particular player.