Consider the scenario where there are three players remaining:

  • Player A has 1,000 chips
  • Player B has 200 chips
  • Player C has 50 chips and is the dealer

The hand starts and Player C goes all in. Player A calls and Player B goes all in. Player A calls Player B's all in. At this point everyone is all in and turns their cards over.

In the end, Player A's hand beats both Player B and Player C. Clearly, Player A has won first place. And if Player B's hand beat Player C's hand then clearly Player B would have won second place, and Player C third.

But what if Player C's hand beats Player B's hand - who gets second place and who gets third place in that scenario? I wager one of the following three outcomes is what should happen, but I'm not familiar with the rules to know what the "official" outcome should be:

  1. Player C wins second place because his hand beat Player B's hand, even though Player B had more chips at the start of the hand.
  2. Player B wins second place since she had more chips at the start of the hand than Player C.
  3. Player A wins first place and gets to go off and roll around in the piles of money he has won. Player C gets 50 of Player B's chips, since he went all in with his 50 and won the hand and the two stay at the table and play heads up to determine second and third place.


  • This could, in principle, go here, but I think it will be much better served at poker.stackexchange.com – JSBձոգչ Jul 22 '12 at 14:46
  • I was unaware of that site, I think it would be better served there. How do I move it from here to there? – Scott Mitchell Jul 22 '12 at 14:47
  • Only moderators can migrate questions, but you can simply re-ask the question over there and then delete this one. – JSBձոգչ Jul 22 '12 at 15:56
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    @JSBձոգչ The question has been answered, so it now needs a moderator to move it. I say leave it here, due to wondering how long the poker site will survive. – Tom Au Jul 22 '12 at 17:45
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    SE Sites are allowed to overlap. Poker questions are on topic both here and at poker.SE There is no reason to migrate. – Pat Ludwig Jul 22 '12 at 21:06

Here, the important factor is that Player B and Player C both lost to, and were "busted" by Player A's hand. Not that Player C's hand beats Player B's.

If two players "bust out" on the same hand, then the prizes are awarded in DESCENDING chip order as of BEFORE the mutual bust. That is Player B comes in ahead of Player C.

If Player C had sat out with 50 chips, and only Player B was busted, Player C would continue. (And probably win second place unless he were able to stage a complete reversal.)

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    To be clear about why B and C's relative hands no longer matter, once A turns over his cards and has the best hand, he takes all of B and C's chips. Since they have no chips left their cards are irrelevant - they're eliminated. If A had been the short stack in this situation then A would only have won the main pot, and B and C would have a side pot to play for, containing the chips that couldn't be matched by A - in which case their hand values come into play. – Gareth Jul 23 '12 at 0:00

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