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A key concept of
tournament play is the idea that a hand has a "point of no return,"
where the player has committed such a large portion of his chips
that he should simply close his eyes, commit the remainder of his
chips to the pot, and hope for the best. Although this is a general
concept of poker, it arises far more often in the setting of
tournament play than in money-game play, because there the blinds
and bets can easily be a large portion of your total chips. That's
why I speak of it as primarily as a tip for tournament players.
The concept of
hitting a point of no return is easy to understand. Poker is a game
where the worse hand has a chance to improve by having additional
cards help the hand. Sometimes we are better off sticking it out and
hoping to help rather than surrendering. In practice, you usually
have two chances; either your hand is good, or you get some help. So
when you get confronted with a bet or raise, your chip position
relative to the pot size may dictate that you play in a committal
fashion. Rather than just calling, if you do decide to play, you
should put the rest of your money into the pot. That way you can get
some potential opponents to fold because they would have to commit
more of their money, and with the certainty of having to show down
the better hand to win the pot.
As a simple
illustration of committing your money, let me use a hypothetical
example. Suppose the game is pot-limit hold'em. You have only a
small stack of $1000 in tournament chips in front of you. An
opponent makes a preflop reraise to a total of $800. You hold AK. It
should be obvious that to just call the bet, having the intention of
either continuing or folding, depending on the flop, is a faulty
strategy. You will flop a pair about a third of the time, yet will
make a pair about half the time if you go all-in and look at all
five boardcards. If you call the $800, are not helped by the flop,
and subsequently fold, you will be losing all those hands where you
would have helped on the turn or river and won. There is about a
couple grand in the pot, counting what would be added from the blind
money. For only $200 more, you can look at five cards. Rather than
just calling the $800 with the intention of calling your last $200
if the opponent bets the flop, it is considered better technique to
put the money in before the flop, so your opponent cannot get away
from his hand if you buy help and bet the flop yourself.
In our
hypothetical problem, it was easy to see that you should either
raise the rest of your remaining chips before the flop or throw your
hand away, because the money figures I used were so close to putting
you all-in. Now here are a couple of examples from real play that
were recently given to me by one of my students. You will see the
same principle at work.
My student
said, "I was playing in a tournament and had about $300 worth of
chips in front of me. A player raised the pot to $75. I was in the
big blind with 9-9; what should I have done?"
When holding a
pocket pair, we must first see if the chip position allows us to try
and flop a set. It is over seven to one against this, and a set will
lose some pots, so you should never commit more than ten percent of
your money to try to flop a set. If you call and try to hit the flop
holding 9-9, what type of flop will you be aiming at, if you do not
turn a set? An overpair? Hard to achieve with nines, and there is no
guarantee of winning if you do get that flop. Only one overcard? No
ace or king on the flop? These things are of some help, but why back
off and give your opponent with 8-8 or some such holding a chance to
win the pot when you both miss? The fact is when you have a pocket
pair, if you have to commit more than ten percent of your stack to
the pot to see the flop, it is better to take a firm position.
Either throw your hand away or move in, but do not make the
indecisive play of calling with the hope of getting a good flop,
because such a thing is difficult to identify if you do not make
trips. It is particularly tempting to make the wimpy play of just
calling when it is late in the tournament and you are hoping to
survive to achieve a higher place in the money, but don't do it. You
can fold, of course, but if you decide to play, go out with your
guns blazing, not shelling out large chunks of your money hoping to
get a good flop.
My student's
second example was from the late stages of a limit hold'em
tournament at an eight-handed table. He had $15,000 in chips. The
blinds were $2000 and $4000, and the betting limit $4000-8000. Here
is what happened.
"I picked up
A-K in the big blind. A player opened in middle position with a
raise and a player in late position cold-called. Should I call or
raise?"
I believe that
the player is close enough to being all-in that he is going to have
to call on the flop even if the boardcards are not helpful. With
less than one big bet left (seven grand when a big bet is eight
grand), he should reraise, and bet the remainder of his money on the
flop. That way, he sees five cards, and not just three. Note that it
is the amount of chips that he has left relative to the pot size
that required this strategy. The fact that is was thousands of
dollars worth of chips is not of consequence, as that changes only
the psychology, not the mathematics. With more money, say over
twenty grand in this blind structure, it would have been quite
reasonable to only call, and hope to help the A-K on the flop, but
not in the actual circumstances he faced.
The
experienced tournament player is especially aware of these
situations where you must either marry your hand or muck it. If you
wish to succeed in tournament poker, and especially satellite play,
you must be familiar with the concept of a point of no return, and
recognize the many situations where a committal decision is forced
upon you.
By Bob
Ciaffone
© 2004; All
Rights Reserved.
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