To ensure a fair and honest playing environment, Circus Poker has established rules governing player behaviour, handling lost connectivity, how specific situations are addressed, and policies against suspected collusion. Your Screen Name is the identity by which other players can get to know you. Part of the game of poker is about knowing your opponents and how they play; therefore, we do not permit players to change their screen name, except under extraordinary circumstances.
If you experience a broken connection, our software is designed to quickly attempt to reconnect you. The game will wait a reasonable amount of time for your connection to be re-established. It will also alert you, and wait a reasonable amount of time for you, should you experience a slow connection, or a distraction at home. If you cannot or do not respond, the poker room software will treat you as all-in, check you, or fold your hand depending on the state of a hand. You will be marked as sitting-out as well. Of course, it is poor etiquette to deliberately slow a game down.

The virtual poker room offers players the ability to play from the comfort of their own home, or at their local Internet Cafe. It's not necessary to travel to a physical poker room. Along with the convenience of the virtual poker room come some opportunities for the unscrupulous. Rest assured that our Poker Room actively guards against unfair behaviour.

Sitting Out and Blinds

In games where the position relative to the dealer can bring advantage, we prevent players from entering and leaving (sitting out) games without having to post the equivalent of the blind. This ensures that there is no financial advantage gained by missing the rotation of the blind.

Chip Dumping and Passing of Chips

We do not allow players to use our poker tables to pass funds to other players by deliberately folding re-raised hands in heads up situations or any other such situation that enables intentional passing of funds from one player to another. For security reasons we investigate all incidents of chip passing and accounts will be suspended while such investigations takes place. This is primarily to prevent fraudulent dumping of funds from one account to another but passing of chips in this manner for any reason whatsoever is strictly forbidden. Failure to comply with this rule will result in account suspension and may result in account closure. In the event that an investigation finds that such activity is found to have taken place, any pending withdrawals will be cancelled, and funds retrieved by the poker room.

Reducing

When a player wins and has more chips than at the start of play, it can be tempting to leave the table, and then immediately return with fewer chips. This is called "reducing" and is not permitted in our poker room. If a player leaves a table they must wait 30 minutes before returning with fewer chips. If they wish to return within the 30 minutes they must sit down with the same amount of chips they left with. There are also situations when a player has lost money and wishes to return to a table he recently left. In this case the same reducing rule applies. Specifically, if a player sits down with 1,000, loses 200 and leaves with 800 he must sit down with 800 if he re-joins the same table within 30 minutes.

Dropping

Using the Internet, there are times when players may lose their connection to the server. This may occur for any number of reasons.

Collusion

Collusion can be a problem in both physical and virtual poker rooms. Collusion is when two or more players attempt to bet in a fashion that allows added gains.
Quite simply, collusion is cheating and we do not tolerate it.

Contacting A Host

Our Hosts are always there to help you in any way they can. If you ever have a question or if you feel you have been the victim of collusion, please notify one of our hosts by clicking on the Manager button.

Etiquette

This is a community and as in any community there are rules about behaviour. These rules are intended to maximize the enjoyment and comfort of all players and visitors. Please follow these rules. Violators will be contacted and risk suspension or banishment.

Betting

There are a few house betting rules you should know:
•    Minimum buy-in: we require you to bring at least ten times (10X) the upper value of the stakes to sit down at a table. Pot limit and No limit games have slightly different buy-in requirements, and have a maximum buy-in. See the section on Pot limit and No limit for those details (hyperlink)

•    Pot limit and No limit Buy-in Rules: You must bring at least 10 times the Big Blind to the table, and no more than 50 times the Big Blind in these games.

•    Minimum Re-buy: You must re-buy at least 5 times the Big Blind. If you don't have sufficient funds in your Circus Poker account, you must deposit additional funds. If you don't have sufficient play chips, you may request additional chips in the Cashier view of the Lobby.

•    Pot limit and No limit Re-buy Rules: When you re-buy in a pot limit or no limit game, you may not exceed the maximum buy-in/re-buy limit. Because you order more chips during a hand, and those chips are delivered at the end of the hand, you may win chips in that hand. If you win, we will adjust your order so that you do not buy more chips than allowed. If that happens, we will return the excess to your Circus Poker account for you.

Rake Info

In real money cash (ring) games, The House – CircusCasino.com <?>, earns its money by retaining a small portion of the pot. The amount that it retains depends on the number of players participating and the table stakes. You can see the current rake in a game by clicking on the "?" in the upper right hand corner of a real money table. <check>