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.
