Why Poker Can Reach Extremely High Stakes
Whether you are playing online poker over the internet, or playing in a land-based casino or dedicated card room, you may find yourself playing for extremely high stakes. This is because even in games or tournaments which have low fixed limits and a maximum number of raises that are permitted in a round (usually three of four), when there are only two players left contesting a pot in most forms of poker and locations there is an unlimited number of raises allowed.
The Head-to-Head Duel
Therefore if two players firmly believe that they have a winning hand they will often keep on raising each other until one of them decides to call. This can lead to the creation of a substantial pot which means the winner would obtain a lot of money (or chips in tournament play), and leave the loser nursing a substantial loss as they will have contributed a lot of chips to that pot as they became the only other player apart from the one who won it to be paying anything into it. The continual raising and re-raising of two players who are convinced they will win has often been the reason behind tournament victories, or the winning (or losing) of large sums of money in cash poker games.
So even if you are playing for what you would not consider particularly high stakes in terms of the ante, blinds or fixed-limit betting/raising amounts that constitute the game that you playing, if you engage with another player towards the end of a hand and continually raise their raise, you can quickly find yourself playing for high stakes without this being your original intention when you sat down at the table at the start. Whilst the potential may be extremely rewarding if you do indeed have the best hand, if you do not, and it is a very real possibility if your opponent is happy to keep on raising, you will lose a large amount of money or possibly be knocked out of the tournament in which you are playing.