All-In Betting: My Take, My Experiences

[JDRock]

Correct me if I'm wrong about these conclusions . . .

In my experience, there are two situations in which I consider making an All-In bet - one good, one bad.

BAD: When the only person who will call the bet is someone who will beat you.

Scenario: I have pocket Jacks and bet them up before the flop. Three players at the flop, and it's 5-5-7. Action is checked to me and I consider making a big bet, distantly fearing trip 5's. I slide in my remaining stack, which is about 2x the current pot. Big mistake.

GOOD: When your opponent is on a drawing hand, but you think he will call anyway.

Scenario: The dude who has been in on every other flop since I sat down gives me a "I think you're a tight player who I can bluff out" look from across the table. Down the road, I get pocket 8s. Modest pre-flop betting, with the player in question the only one calling my re-raise. Flop is K-3-6 with two of them hearts. Player bets $5, which is only about %10 of the current pot at this point. From this I deduce that the one over card on the board is not paired up, and that the only possibility is that he's on a flush draw. I contemplating sliding my stack in, and end up going with it. Good bet. Not to be bullied by a player like me, my opponent calls.

These are the scenarios, now here are the actual consequences.

In the first, everyone else folds and I take a modest pot. This will happen a grand majority of the time you make a bet like this. However, the losses from the one time you make that kind of bet and are called far outweigh the gains made from attempting to buy pots that were yours anyway. This is especially true in tournaments, but also in cash games.

In the second scenario, there's a split in opinion from what I've read. Some say that if you really have put your opponent on a drawing hand you should take the hand to the turn and river as cheaply as possible to see if he actually makes his hand before you bet. I've also read and am more persuaded by the idea that you should put chips in the pot whenever the odds favor you. In this case, my opponent had 9 hearts and probably only one over card, giving him 12 outs total. It's much more than even money for me to bet at this point. Even if he has two over cards, his chances only improve to about 50/50.

What actually happened however, is that my bet was called, and he makes his flush on the turn. He sheepishly shows me J-4 of hearts.

Although I lost a big pot, I still feel it was a good bet. However, there are some other concerns here with anchoring properly, as I simply gave this player back all the money I had won from him on a previous hand that I had pinned him on a drawing hand and played the same way. In a cash game, if you're taking chances like this you want to leave the casino on a win, rather than a loss. Otherwise you will obviously lose over time, regardless of what the odds at the flop tell you. Also, similarly in a tournament you will most often leave the game on a loss of this type, so in that setting you should revaluate. In my opinion, you should only do this when the stacks of you and your opponent differ greatly. Either you've got more than enough to cover your opponent and you'll be fine even if he does make his hand, or you're short stacked and are looking for a good odds opportunity for someone to double you up. Early on or against similarly stacked opponents, you should probably see the rest of the cards before betting.

In summary, these are two hallmark situations for me - one in which I made the right play and lost and another in which I made the wrong play and one. That further reaffirms for me the importance in poker of divorcing decisions from results and learning how to shake off a bad beat.

[Kemics]

Welcome to the forums i dont want to be overly critical but some of what you say is kind of counter intuitive to traditional poker theory.

Scenario: I have pocket Jacks and bet them up before the flop. Three players at the flop, and it's 5-5-7. Action is checked to me and I consider making a big bet, distantly fearing trip 5's. I slide in my remaining stack, which is about 2x the current pot. Big mistake.

if you're this short stacked i'd open shove PF. And if there has been betting preflop its hard to imagine a hand where someone calls with a 5 as your stack dosn't give the implied odds to play speculative hands. this is just about a perfect flop.

there's a split in opinion from what I've read. Some say that if you really have put your opponent on a drawing hand you should take the hand to the turn and river as cheaply as possible to see if he actually makes his hand before you bet

whoever says that they are probably broke.

If you can assign your opponents range as a draw you want to price them out otherwise you will be forcing them to play correctly.

Otherwise you will obviously lose over time, regardless of what the odds at the flop tell you

...wtf?

[JDRock]

Welcome to the forums i dont want to be overly critical but some of what you say is kind of counter intuitive to traditional poker theory.

Scenario: I have pocket Jacks and bet them up before the flop. Three players at the flop, and it's 5-5-7. Action is checked to me and I consider making a big bet, distantly fearing trip 5's. I slide in my remaining stack, which is about 2x the current pot. Big mistake.

if you're this short stacked i'd open shove PF. And if there has been betting preflop its hard to imagine a hand where someone calls with a 5 as your stack dosn't give the implied odds to play speculative hands. this is just about a perfect flop.

Thanks for the welcome. Yeah, I appreciate the conversation, criticism welcome.

My only concern above was that I was in early position, under the gun if I remember right. In that position I bet out 8x the big blind, which is about what I was comfortable with.

Sliding all in before the flop, I think anyway, would present about the same situation as what actually happened. I myself would not call even with AK suited or a pocket pair that was lower than 10s or so. So, given that, you've got the same situation - a big bet that will only be called by someone who will beat you. You'll win the blinds in the best case scenario, even most of the time, but once in a while you'll be beaten by AA or something like that. With that matrix of possibilities, it's too low of a payout to put that many chips in the pile.

But, I agree that 5-5-7 or whatever it was is exactly the flop that JJ wants to see. I was just critical of the bet. Some people who I see at that casino think A-5 is not a speculative hand, and would likely call. Also, you still may run up against a bigger pocket pair. The point is, there's a lot of exposure to risk for such little payoff.

there's a split in opinion from what I've read. Some say that if you really have put your opponent on a drawing hand you should take the hand to the turn and river as cheaply as possible to see if he actually makes his hand before you bet

whoever says that they are probably broke.

If you can assign your opponents range as a draw you want to price them out otherwise you will be forcing them to play correctly.

I agree with you. Especially against someone who will call, making them pay is the right move. I've seen conservatives pull off the above though, mostly in tournament setting in which they think they've got an advantage in skill. They don't go in on any hand that they think they have any chance of losing at all, thinking that if it weren't for luck they'd win them all, or something arrogant and Hellmuth-esque like that.

Otherwise you will obviously lose over time, regardless of what the odds at the flop tell you

...wtf?

Let me explain.

This is a mathematical principle that it took a while for me to get a hold of myself, but my experience as an agressive player has taught me this lesson by force at the very least.

Let's take an illustration. Let's say you have a game, roulette or something, that gives you exactly 50:50 chance of making a positive outcome and exactly 2:1 odds on your bet. Mathematically, this is an even game that will neither win nor lose over time, amirite?

Well, mathematically there is one way to win at a game like this. When you lose, bet exactly twice what you bet before. Let's say you bet 1 and lose. Then you bet 2, lose. Bet 4, lose. Bet 8 and win, you get 16 back. Even in the unlikely event that you lost 3 times in a row, on the entire sequence you lost 15 and won 16. Rinse, repeat. If you have an infinite bankroll, infinite table limit and infinite everything, this method will yield positive winnings over time out of a game that is 50:50.

In a lot of situations in poker, the opposite is true for the one betting with superior odds. Let's say you go all in for $100 in a hand you have 66% chance to win. Then, you win and double up. Next hand you bet $200 when up against the same situation. Let's say you win, you're now at $400. Next time you go all in, if you lose you're bust, even though you won 2/3 of the situations in which you had 66ish % chance to win. In the roulette example, you're forcing the escalating bet to work for your favor while in the poker example it's working against you.

In reality, you double up twice and you've usually got everyone else at the table covered. However, in other situations, especially tournaments, everyone who is staying in is increasing their stack at the same rate you are. In order to produce an overall favorable result, you have to win a long sequence of exposures in which you have favorable chances. This doesn't happen all that often, but it's what wins tournaments. You need to have skill AND luck.

Translate that to cash games, when I first started playing I would show up in the casino with about $200. Every few nights I would come home with $1000'ish, but all of the other nights I would come home empty handed. I was probably still cash-flow positive over the long term, but this was disastrous psychologically for my bankroll and for my confidence as a player. On my lucky night I would come home thinking I was pro, and on the other nights I would wonder what I was thinking. I imagine a lot of other people have had similar experiences.

As a consequence, I started limiting myself to never playing with over a certain amount on the table, and I decided to always leave the casino on a win no matter if I had to take out more than I showed up with. It seemed like a classless thing to do, but it kept my bankroll positive. And I would never leave immediately after winning a hand, I'd sit there for a few more just to keep appearances up. After a while, I accepted the fact that limiting table stakes and anchoring myself with a win was the only way to keep my bankroll consistent with the kind of aggressive style I have.

Anyway, this is more of a bankroll management issue than a betting issue. But, in the context of all-in betting, I thought it would be appropriate to bring up this principle. Otherwise, people find themselves going bust quite frequently, having made the correct decisions all the while. For a lot of people, that's confusing and frustrating.

[supafrey]

All that stuff about reverse martingale is useless fluff. A pot is a pot, a bet is a bet - play within your roll and your decisions will work themselves out.. being at 200+ blinds is an opportunity, not a disadvantage.

Also, in the future please immediately explain whether you're talking about MTT or cash games for your basic strategy stuff. Some of this stuff was impossible to read and not immediately recognizing whether it was tourney makes it impossible to reply. I know most of your JJ stuff on 55x is terrible but without stack sizes, betting info or any other stuff a conversation is impossible.

[Muck]

In a lot of situations in poker, the opposite is true for the one betting with superior odds. Let's say you go all in for $100 in a hand you have 66% chance to win. Then, you win and double up. Next hand you bet $200 when up against the same situation. Let's say you win, you're now at $400. Next time you go all in, if you lose you're bust, even though you won 2/3 of the situations in which you had 66ish % chance to win. In the roulette example, you're forcing the escalating bet to work for your favor while in the poker example it's working against you.

No this is an illustration of why Bankroll Management is important. Even when the odds are in your favour you can still lose but as long as you’re not betting everything you have and you have positive expectation, will gain a stead profit in the long run.

Put another way it’s like:
Bet $100. Win. Result BR +$100
Bet $100. Win. Result BR +$100
Bet $100. Lose. Result BR -$100
Result $200 profit.
Or
Bet $100. Win. Result BR +$100
Bet $100. Lose. Result BR -$100
Bet $100. Win. Result BR +$100
Result $200 profit.

On my lucky night I would come home thinking I was pro, and on the other nights I would wonder what I was thinking. I imagine a lot of other people have had similar experiences.

[i]This is called Results Oriented Thinking. When you come home with $2000, sit down and think “I played awful tonight, I really need to work on my…â€

[gumbie]

BAD: When the only person who will call the bet is someone who will beat you.

tldr, but this is wrong.