When to call all-in

How to decide whether or not to call all-in in No Limit Hold'em?
Author: Daniel Kimberg

When your opponent bets all of his chips before the flop, you are faced with an interesting choice: call or fold. With more and more players making this move a habit, what's the right decision?

In a commercial game, the answer is math: you start with the pot odds. If the all-in bet is much higher than the current pot, then you need to win more often than 50 percent of the time. If the sweat is already large enough, reduce this value proportionally. If you want to spend a certain amount in order to strengthen your position, increase this number. As long as your money does not make up a significant part of the circulating capital on the table, in light of the long-term outcome, it will be most reasonable to rely on the pot odds (provided you know exactly which hand your opponent is raising). Of course, the most difficult thing is to understand your chances of winning, and for this you need to have an excellent sense of how your opponents' hands are distributed.

In tournaments, in one-on-one situations, since you can't just walk away with your chips, you need to think not only about the current hand, but about the whole tournament, considering the consequences that your actions will have for the whole event. In this regard, other factors are gaining importance. If, compared to the size of the stacks, the blinds are small, you can afford to wait longer than with the much tighter blinds. If, during the remainder of the tournament, you hope to gain a significant advantage over your opponent, you should try not to bet your chips if the gain is small. And if you have a lot more chips than your opponent, you should be happy to continue playing with hands like the minor favorite or even the under dog.

How big is your advantage over an opponent with a certain hand at a certain point? It depends on several factors: the size of the stacks and blinds, the speed at which the blinds rise, and your relative skill level. From a certain point of view, the importance of mastery is gradually decreasing. It decreases as the blinds increase relative to the stacks. When the blinds go up very quickly, you have too little time to show your skills; on the other hand, lack of time may prevent your opponent from making a tough decision.

If you think that your opponent is much stronger than you (although I'm sure you don't think so), every time you take your chips profitably, you improve your position. In a situation with roughly equal stacks and no idea of future cards, your fair share of the tournament money being played or hand value will be less than 50 percent. And if your luck brings you a strong hand with which you think you have more than 50 percent chance of winning and your opponent goes all-in, call this bet. You have the right to note, however, that it may be worth waiting for a stronger hand to come, but with the same degree of probability, you may not receive anything else at all. Whenever your choice is between 50 percent of your fair share and something less, choose a larger number. The question is what the fair share must be in order to call. Basically, it is a matter of your opponent's skill level. Of course, truly skillful players won't over-bet when only the blinds are on the table, but if you have good reason to believe that your opponent will have a hand as weak as AQ or even AK, consider this question again.

As the blinds increase in relation to the size of the stacks, the value of the hand becomes less related to skill and more to who is in the blind. It is also true that you have to choose between a fraction that you can qualify for if you pass and a fraction that you can qualify for if you call. But massive bets should still persuade you to call, because if you fold, you cannot be sure that your proportional share of chips remains unchanged. This is what tournament players have an intuitive preference for; there is no point in giving up the blinds in a heads-up fight.

If you can take money from a stronger player with a small advantage, or by calling almost losing bets, then you need to understand that if you are stronger
m the player will be you, you should not offer your opponent such bets. When the blinds are small and playing for a long time, it is better to avoid profitable plays, which, however, are less profitable than simply going to the next hand. Give your opponent a chance to make bigger mistakes.

Again, tournament players, be they world champions or fans of SnG tournaments, intuitively understand this. When your stack gets unreasonably small in relation to the blinds, you need to do something before it becomes impossible to play with. And if your stack is huge, it's pretty nice to squeeze someone who has small stacks, because even a loss won't change much. But you shouldn't be tempted to play another huge stack unless you have a great hand.

This is also one of the dangers of super-aggressive pre-flop play, especially when the blinds are small. When you play for a long time, you increase the likelihood that your opponent will be forced to decide that calling your bet is justified. There is absolutely no point in playing super aggressive when all you can win is the blinds that are much smaller than your stack. Also, by doing this you give your opponent the opportunity to call your bet with a guaranteed profit. If you raise with any combination in your hands, your opponent can be sure that his AJ is stronger.

None of this gives you guidance on how to determine the odds of winning. This just further emphasizes that once you have determined the probability of winning with a particular hand, you still need to decide how good the probability is. It is not enough to simply say, "My hand is stronger, so I call." You need to decide if she is strong enough to make a call preferable to waiting. Also, you cannot just fold your hand because it is weaker. If you are tired, hungry and generally not feeling well, then it will probably be easier for you to call your opponent's overbet with KJ in hand, even if you are sure that he has a small pocket pair.

Following our reasoning, you can even imagine a very real development of events in a heads-up situation, when you fold a fairly strong hand before the flop. If the blinds are small relative to the stacks for the foreseeable future, and you think you can gain a significant advantage simply by playing slowly, it would be pretty foolish to bet your chips to get a little profit. Depending on how great your advantage over your opponent is - for example, you have noticed any sign that your advantage is great - and how much you can afford to wait, it may be worthwhile to discard all the advantages of great tactics "slowly but true. "