Q&A #111: Committment With Tournament Stack Sizes
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Many tournament players make a consistent mistake. They focus too much on conserving their chips and preserving their “tournament life,” and in doing so they leave big pots hanging out to dry.
I see it frequently when I play tournaments. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. The blinds are 200-400, and the big blind has 2500 chips. Someone raises to 1200, and the big blind calls. So the pot contains 2600 chips, and there is 1300 remaining. The flop comes KJ6 and the big blind bets out something like 500 into the 2600 pot. The preflop raiser will moves all-in for 800 more, and the big blind folds.
No matter what two cards the big blind held, he misplayed the hand. He disregarded the principle of commitment. I rarely see a mistake this flagrant in cash games, but in tournaments I see it relatively commonly because many players attach too much importance to “staying alive.”
Before I continue, I’ll briefly describe the principle of commitment. The basic idea is that once you’ve committed a significant fraction of your stack to a pot, you’re usually right to put the rest of it in rather than fold. Since you’ve built the pot up, you’ll typically be getting nice odds on the rest of your cash: 2-to-1, 3-to-1, or even better. Even if you figure to be an underdog in the hand, you’ll usually have enough equity to justify tossing the rest of your stack in and reverting to hope and pray mode.
What’s a “significant fraction of your stack”? A decent rule of thumb is one-third, but as with everything in poker, that number is flexible.
So how should the big blind have approached the above hand? The preflop raise was to about half his stack. Realistically he had two ways to approach the hand: put all his money in or fold immediately. All lines that involve putting in some extra money and then folding are bad. The initial preflop raise was enough to commit him to the hand, and therefore he needed to back up his play with his entire stack.
If he chose to play the hand, he had essentially two reasonable lines: reraise all-in preflop, or call the preflop raise and then move all-in on the flop no matter what. Why is calling the raise and then bet-folding the flop so bad? Because if the preflop raiser is decent, the flop raise conveys essentially no additional information beyond what the original preflop raise implied.
Here’s what I mean. Any time you open a pot preflop, you should always check out the big blind. Is the blind tight or loose? What are the stacks? In this case, the preflop raiser can see that the big blind’s stack is tiny. If the big blind chooses to defend, both players will be committed to the hand. So even before putting the initial 1200 raise in, the preflop raiser should have mentally committed himself to 1300 more if the big blind defends. Therefore, the fact that the preflop raiser actually puts that 1300 into the pot conveys no additional information. We already knew he would do that when he raised preflop!
In general I’d recommend the big blind just stick all the money in preflop and see who wins. The other option – calling preflop and then betting all-in on any flop – is designed to try to exploit other players’ instincts to fold and “save some chips” when they should be committing to the hand. It can be a handy ploy, but if you’re just getting used to this idea of committing to a pot, I’d suggest you just commit early and be confident you did the right thing.
Whew. That was a big intro. Now for today’s question from Natcheztoo on the message board:
Back again. I didn’t mention stack sizes, but when playing I am developing the discipline to try and always be cognizant of them. In SNGs, when getting close to the bubble or on the bubble, I always, for instance, try not to make a bluff or move against one of the stacks that can really damage or eliminate me.
Last night I had this happen in a tournament:
Blinds 200 – 400. We started the tournament with 4000 chips. I have about 3600 chips. Oh, shit, I think I see it already by just writing it down here. But it wouldn’t have made much difference in the outcome of the hand.
I get A-Qo and am first to open the pot in middle position. I raise 3x to 1200. Hijack calls as does the button. I am depressed. Hijack and the button’s stacks are slightly larger than mine.
The flop is 10,10,8, with no flush cards. I am first to act and C-bet 1200 into the 3600 chip pot. Maybe not enough, but with a larger bet and the possibility that I might have to fire again, failure means being left without enough chips to maneuver. I’d be left with just all-in and pray.
The Hijack calls and the button goes all-in. I fold, the hijack calls with 9-9 and the button turns over trip 10s and wins the hand.
I am left with 1000 chips and when I go all-in with Kh9d in late middle position with an unopened pot I get three callers. I made kings and queens, but a full house won one pot and a Big Broadway straight won the other. Toast again.
Now, it occurred to me that with 3600 chips and blinds of 200 – 400, my only move must have been all-in. Even if the hijack had folded the button would have called (I know his play pretty well) and I would have been toast anyway.
The point is: it is amazing that you can sit there and pretty much play correct ABC poker, but one good hand (whether or not I bet 3x or go all-in) can doom you. I guess that is just poker.
What do you think about my play in this hand? I am embarrased that, in the heat of battle, I let M and 10xBB mandate slip upon me without noticing.
As you can probably tell by now, I agree with Natcheztoo’s conclusion. He should have simply moved all-in preflop rather than raised only to 1200. The 1200 raise represents 1/3 of his remaining stack, and therefore by putting it in the pot with a hand as strong as A-Q, he has committed himself.
However, the 1200 raise size was not necessarily that bad. As I said before, as long as you’ve committed yourself to getting all the money in, sometimes it can be best to move all-in preflop and sometimes it can be better to save some money to try to fold out players on the flop.
I really dislike Natcheztoo’s decision to bet 1200 on the flop and then fold to a raise. I think he should have simply pushed all-in on the flop. If someone flopped a 10, so be it. If not, he will at least have six outs on the turn and river to try to catch up if called, and he could easily also get called by a hand like AJ or a straight draw that he’s ahead of. The stacks are far too short for him to assume that the raise indicates that he’s drawing effectively dead to trips, and if he’s not drawing dead, then he should definitely call getting more than 8-to-1 on his money.
Finally, I agree completely with Natcheztoo’s observation that in tournaments, often everything hangs on the outcome of one hand. It’s the nature of poker tournaments. The structures usually jack the blinds and antes up fast enough to force everyone to be relatively short stacked. Once most people are playing 10 big blind stacks, playing a hand preflop usually also commits you to the hand. Just remember that your “tournament life” isn’t really all that important. You play a lot of tournaments, and busting out of one is no big deal. You just go play another. If you make the best plays and commit to the right hands, you’ll end up with the biggest prize kitty. So what if you bust out of a few tournaments you could have hung around in just a little bit longer by “saving chips”? The goal isn’t to hang around, it’s to win the big prizes, and you’ll give yourself the best shot to do that by finishing what you start.
Tags: committment, committment threshold, no-limit-holdem, poker, poker-tournaments, saving chips, stack-sizes, tournament lifeIf you find this article helpful please support the site to help keep the poker strategy tips coming.
“Pot Committed” is one of the greatest fallacies passed on from player to player to player to player to … and so on, for generations.