What happens if two players have the same hand? How do you divide the pot?

In some forms of poker it is fairly common for two or more players to end up with the same best hand. In that case, the players with equal hands split the pot equally between them. Remember that only the best five cards of a player's hand are considered in the showdown. If the best five cards yield a tie, you do not use additional cards to break the tie. Also, you don't look at the suits to break a tie. It's simply a tie. Here are some examples:

• In Holdem, one player has [Ah Jc] and another player has [As Jd]. The final board is Ad Ts 8s 4h 2d. Both players have a pair of aces with J-T-8 kickers. They split the pot.
• In Holdem, one player has [Ah Jc] and another player has [As 2d]. The final board is Ad Kc Ts Th 2c. Both players have two pair, aces and tens, with a king kicker. They split the pot.
• In Holdem, one player has [Ah Ac], a second player has [8s 7s], and a third player has [5s 4h]. The final board is Th 9h 8d 7d 6c. All three players have a straight, ten high. This is called "playing the board". They split the pot three ways.
• In Omaha high/low split, one player has [Ac 3d Th Td] and another player has [As 3s 4c 5d]. The final board is 2c 4d 8s Ts Jc. Remember that in Omaha, each player must play exactly two cards from his hand and three from the board, but can use a different two cards for the high and low halves of the pot. For the high half of the pot, the first player plays [Th Td] for three of a kind, tens, with J-8 kickers, while the second player plays [As 4c] for a pair of fours, A-J-T kickers. The first player wins all of the high half of the pot. For the low half of the pot, the first player plays [Ac 3d] for an 8-4-3-2-A low, while the second player plays [As 3s] for an 8-4-3-2-A low. They have the same hand for low, so they split the low half of the pot. All told, the first player wins three quarters of the pot and the second player wins one quarter.
• In Seven-card Stud, one player has [Ac Ad Tc Td Js 8s 4s] and another player has [As Ah Ts Th 5s 5h Jd]. Both players have two pair, aces and tens, with a jack kicker. You don't consider the sixth or seventh cards. You can see this is pretty unusual for stud and happens mostly with straights.

What about the extra chip? If you split the pot and there is an extra chip left over, the usual rule is to award it to the first winning player in the clockwise direction from the dealer.

What about high-low declare? In high-low split declare games, the rules can be more complicated. See the special high-low declare section for more details.