In poker at CoralPoker.co.uk, there are often instances where side pots or split pots are necessary. The most commonly found situation where a side pot is needed, occurs when one player does not have enough chips to match a bet made, but there is another player yet to act who has more chips.

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Side pots can be won in online poker by the shortstacked player beating the other players in the pot, with the other pot being awarded to the next best hand. Sometimes two side pots are needed in this situation if there are two shortstacks, but more than two side pots is very rare.

Split Pots are needed regularly in certain types of games, with Omaha hi/lo and Stud games with a hi/lo split having regular split pots too. The rules here are simple, in that all money bet is placed into a central pot, and after the hands are turned over, the best qualifying low hand and the best high hand split the pot. Sometimes there is no possibility of a low hand though, and the high hand takes it all. The only possible complications with this come when two players have precisely the same high or low hand. It is not overly unusual for this to happen, and this case results in the two equally strong hand splitting half the pot. This is known as getting quartered.

Split pots sometimes occur in Holdem as well as hi/lo split games, but in games such as Omaha hi/lo they can often be more profitable. Splitting four players chips two ways does not do your chip stack any harm at all, but it can also be frustrating to turn over the nut low and find you only win a quarter of the pot.