Typically cardroom games are played without an ante. The reason for this should be obvious to those of you who are familiar with the common mantra of home games, "Who didn't put their ante up?" Because poker is basically a struggle among the players for the right to the money in the pot, without some seed money for the pot there's nothing to struggle over and no game. We need some procedure to get the pot started. In Hold 'Em, blind bets are what's used to get some initial money in the pot.

The action in Hold 'Em at each betting round begins with the first active player to the left of the dealer button. Blinds are forced bets put out by either the first or the first two players. Usually it's the first two players. The blinds replace the function of an ante in getting some initial money into the pot. Some games only use a single blind, most use two blinds, the second one larger than the first. In a structured game, the second blind (called the big blind) is the size of the pre-flop bet. In a 10/20 game, the big blind is $10, and in a 3/6/12 game, the big blind is $3.

The small blind is put out by the first player to the left of the button and is half the big blind. In a game such as 3/6, where the big blind is an odd number, the small blind is sometimes rounded up, sometimes down, $1 or $2. It's usually rounded down. Spread-limit games usually have smaller blinds than a corresponding structured-limit game does.

Blinds are "live," which means that the player posting the blind will be last to act during the first betting round. Even if no player raises-that is, they all only call the large blind bet-the player who posted the large blind has an option to raise.