ALL-IN . A bad play ?

This one is a shortstacked idea. Your playing a sit and go or MTT tourney, and you find yourself shortstacked (not your fault mind, bloody gut-shots). You know you need to make a move soon, and double up. You figure you need to go all-in soon.

I think this is bad thinking. So say you have 6BB left, you have the button and you pick up Ax. All-in "can" be a bad play here. Low level players love calling all-in's for some reason. Why not raise 3xBB here and push on the flop. Regardless of what it is.

1) If you opponent is prepared to call a 3xBB raise, he will call your all-in.

2) Your bet screams out CALL ME ! Scary prospect when you see a short stack raising like this.

3) You give your-self 2 chances of taking down the pot. You opponent will call your all-in with his pocket 8's pre-flop. But that queen on the flop may just be enough of a card to scare him. They may even fold bottom/middle pair.

This works much better against a tight player mind. Now this is just something to remember the next time you want to make a move. Mix it up folks.

depends on the player

I think most players if they are going to call you, they will usually push and force you to go all in anyway

For 3BBs more most people won't.

With a 10BB stack or so, your suggestion is is more viable.

Two very good points. I always thought when you were small stack a quick all in might make players give you there blinds if you were in the right spot. After reading what tenbob has to say, I will now change my thinking. Grum is right, but with tenbob's method it could work occasionally.

A very good twist on the "All-in" play. Thanks for that,i will keep that one in mind next time i am short stacked.

Fug`s

If you are in late position and nobody raises the big blind by the time it comes to you, it may be a good play because everyone might fold and you steal the blinds. Any little gain helps. Plus, if one player calls you, you have a very good chance of winning.

The reason that you push with 6x BB instead of raising it to 3x BB is you gain more fold equity.

Fold equity is influence on your opponent to fold in simple terms. By pushing more chips into the pot, you are making your opponent risk a larger portion of his/her stack to call you.

So, if you push with 1000 chips left (blinds 100/200) and a player who has 2000 is thinking of calling, they would be risking half of their stack. If you only raised to 500/600, it would only be around a 1/4 of their stack to call.

You want to have as much fold equity as possible when you start to push with hands like Ax, Kx, all pocket pairs, and any two cards above 9 late in a tournament.