Taking an All-In Risk

In tournament play, you make decision after decision that could result in risking all of your chips. You’ll make at least one decision for all of your chips in virtually every tournament you play. And in most tournaments, you’ll make multiple all-in decisions.

Whenever you choose to go for it, and you lose, it’s easy to second-guess your decision. “I thought I had an edge at the time, but maybe I should have waited for a better spot.”

Tournament decisions can be complicated by the nature of the prize structure, but in many cases, the second-guessing is unwarranted. Recently, a reader sent me a question, wondering about some of his all-in decisions:

Lately I’ve been getting some bad results when calling all-in bets near or at the final table.

Usually when I’m at or near the final table in the live tournaments that I play, the average stack is around 10 big blinds, so there isn’t much happening except all-in bets and folding (with a lot of stealing).

Obviously, this can’t go on forever, so whenever I think I have a good chance of holding the best hand, I call. A lot of times, this turns out to be a coin flip, and I was wondering if calling the all-in bet was the correct play.

I’ll give you two recent examples:
1. I called an all-in bet with 7-7, the other guy had K-J, and the board paired aces and tens, leaving me empty-handed. I thought he might shove with any ace, any pocket pair, or two facecards, so in my mind, I had a slight advantage.

2. I called an all-in bet with A-Q suited, the other guy had 10-10, the board came up dry, and I headed home. I had put this guy on A-10 or better, any pocket pair, or two facecards.

Now, obviously, I shouldn’t be calling these bets if we had bigger stacks, but with the short stacks, you just can’t wait around for A-A and K-K all the time.
So, my question is, should I be making these calls, or should I just let them steal and wait until it’s my turn to steal back?

Unless the prize structures were exceptionally flat, I like both of my reader’s decisions to get the money in.

Let’s look at his equity against the hand ranges he put his opponents on. (By the way, the hand ranges that he proposed for his opponents seem fairly reasonable to me, and typical for players in all-in situations.)

For the first hand, he held 7-7 and thought he was up against a range of any ace, any pocket pair, or any two facecards. His hand is a 56-44 favorite over his opponent’s hand range. (You can calculate numbers like these by using the terrific tool PokerStove by Andrew Prock, available at http://pokerstove.com/.)

My reader didn’t tell me the exact stack sizes involved, but let’s say that we’re playing 100-200 blinds and a 25 ante with 2,000 stacks (10 big blinds). If our opponent goes all in and we call, we’re looking at risking 2,000 to win about 2,500, giving us roughly 5-4 pot odds. The bottom line is that we’re a noticeable favorite in the hand, and we’re also getting odds on the call.

The term “coin flip” can be used in a misleading way when analyzing tournament strategy. If the hand is 50-50, it’s a coin flip. If it’s 55-45, it’s a very significant advantage for one player. Casinos have won billions of dollars on edges that size and smaller. If you’re 56 percent to win the hand and you’re getting 5-4 on your money, you really need a compelling reason not to take the risk.

Likewise, on the A-Q suited hand, my reader was a 55-45 favorite against the range that he allocated to his opponent. Again, he would need a compelling reason not to play.

What would a compelling reason not to play look like? The obvious case would be a supersatellite. Let’s say that you’re playing in a tournament in which all of the last nine players will receive a World Series of Poker main-event seat. You’re down to the final 10 players — two tables of five. You’re playing hand-for-hand. In other words, as soon as one player is eliminated, the tournament will end, and everyone left will get an equal prize.

Let’s say that all of the chip stacks are roughly equal, so everyone has about a 90 percent chance to get a seat (varying some, depending on where the buttons are). If you call all in as a 55-45 favorite, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. If you fold, you have a 90 percent chance to win a seat. If you call, you have only a 55 percent chance to win a seat.

But most tournament scenarios aren’t nearly as extreme. Typically, a tournament will award a large chunk of the total prize pool to the top two or three spots, with relatively smaller amounts going to the remaining positions. In these tournaments, going for the win, rather than trying to fold your way into the money, will usually be your best strategy. If you have a good opportunity like a 56-44 edge to pick up a pot that’s offering you odds, you should generally go for it.

So, it’s impossible for me to say for sure that my reader did the right thing in taking a stand in his tournaments, because it could depend on the exact chip stacks and prize structure. But generally speaking, in most tournaments and in most situations, you would be right to go for these solid edges. Sometimes it won’t work out, but when it does, you’ll end up going on to win the tournament a lot more often than you would if you systematically folded in these situations. And overall, you’ll also end up winning more money.

Ed’s brand-new book, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, is available for purchase at smallstakesnolimitholdem.com. He is a featured coach at stoxpoker.com, and you can also check out his online poker advice column, notedpokerauthority.com.