All in bets In Texas Hold Em Poker

Learn Texas Hold Em » Texas Holdem Betting Strategies » All In Bet

n all in bet or all in raise can really rattle your opponents. Among good players, risking all of your chips on a single poker hand is rare until they get short stacked.

When you gamble all your chips and go for an all in bet or all in raise (really the same thing), you are risking your tournament life and leaving no room for other options.

Better players really don't like making an all in bet. They only do this when they see it as a "necessary evil".

There are people who greatly overuse this betting stategy because they consider poker a game of "big bluffs and big moves". But, like any tool, you can use the all in bet in the right way to really give yourself an advantage.

1. If you are playing short stack poker this can be good move.
2. If you have been re-raised and you have the absolute best hand.
3. Not usually looking for more action, just want to win the pot.
4. You have the best hand at the flop and one of your opponents is on a draw of some kind, the move can be a deterrent to a probable call.

Look at a real life tournament situation. You will face it as you continue to play Texas Holdem.

It's late in a Sit N Go tournament...

• The blinds are 150/300 and you have a stack of 2500 chips.
• There are three players left and you are the big blind.
• The button, who is a Rock, has put you in the position to risk your remaining 2500 chips.

Looking down at your hand you see 6 - 6.

Since the all in bet comes up many times; we need to try to break this down into pieces and look at each part in detail.

If you need a refresher course in pot odds, visit the calculating poker odds page first.

Because the big blind (you) and small blind have contributed to the pot, this is dead money and helps your pot odds (if not by much) should you decide to call.

In order to call the the all in bet your hand must be better than a 43.5% favorite to win the pot, as it needs to win at that amount each time to break even.

So, we should look closer into calculating pre flop all-in odds before we make the call.

What kind of hand would the Rock be holding to force you to make the call pre-flop?

Now we have an idea of the possible hands your opponent may be holding,

Let us categorize your opponent.

• In the scenario, your opponent is a Rock, which means he is tight, but not too aggressive.
• In this case, compare your hand of pocket Sixes vs. each possible hand the "Rock" can be holding.

Since your opponent the Rock is a tight-passive player, you can assume he is playing one of the hands from the Rock player category.

While you cannot accurately predict which hand the Rock is holding when putting you all in, you can figure on average, 66 will be a 48% favorite to win vs. any random hand from the Rock group.

Since the pot odds only require you to win 44% of the time, the all in bet would be the correct call.

The above illustration is simply a guideline designed to help you through the tough decision making of making an all in bet.

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