Match One's Lights ( poker )





In a home game, a situation that comes up when a player is light (Short of the complete bet. "He's light by $20." Also called shy.). In some home games, not played for table stakes, when a player does not have enough chips to continue betting in a pot, that player withdraws chips from the pot equal to the amount of the betting beyond his chips, (usually) stacking them neatly in front of him. These are called lights. (To so withdraw chips is called go light.)

At the end of the hand, if the player does not win the pot, he buys enough chips to cover his lights. He then matches his lights, that is, puts the lights into the pot plus an equivalent amount of chips from the ones he has just bought. For example, in a stud game, Jill starts with $16. After the sixth card, she has $2 left. The high hand bets $4. She puts her last $2 in the pot, and pulls $2 from the pot, and stacks it in front of her. At this point, she might say, "I'm light," or, "I'm going light." On the last round, someone bets $4 and someone calls. She pulls another $4 from the pot, adding it to her pile of lights.

On the showdown, she finds that her three 7s are beat by a small straight. She buys another $50 worth of chips from the banker, adds $6 to her lights, and puts the $12 in the pot. At this point, the winner takes the whole pot. In a split (two-way) pot, if both the winner of the high half and the winner of the low half have lights, they exchange lights. This is equivalent to each first matching lights, and then splitting the pot, and saves time.