Chop (Split Pot) — Poker Term Explained

A chop happens when two or more players hold hands of exactly equal value at showdown and the pot is divided between them. In Texas Hold'em the five best cards decide everything — suits never break a tie and the sixth card is ignored. So AK and AK split, and so do two players who both play the board. Odd chips that cannot be divided evenly go to the player closest to the left of the dealer button.

Chops are mostly a reading skill: recognise the boards where your strong-looking hand is very likely to be splitting rather than winning. A straight on a board like 9-8-7 with a ten and jack out there is often a chop, and so is any hand whose value comes entirely from the board. When a chop is the realistic best case, stop betting for value — you are only building a pot you will split while giving a better hand room to raise. The separate meaning, a "deal chop", is an agreement among the remaining tournament players to divide the remaining prize money; compute it from ICM equity, not from chip counts, or the short stacks are being overpaid and the chip leader underpaid.

Over-betting the river with a hand that can only chop. If your straight uses both board cards that everyone else can also use, extra value bets earn nothing from worse hands and lose to the occasional better one. In tournament deal talks, the parallel mistake is splitting the prize pool by chip percentage, which systematically overpays the shortest stack.

• Suits never break ties in Texas Hold'em — equal five-card hands always split
• Odd chips go to the first player left of the button
• Board-only hands ("playing the board") chop with everyone still in
• Tournament deal chops should be priced from ICM equity, not chip counts