When All In Is Your Best Bet

I recently read an article by Daniel Negreanu dealing with when an all-in is your only decision to make if you want to have a chance of winning a tournament, even if you'e bluffing.
First of all, your opponents can't outplay you because all your chips are already in the pot so all they can do is call you or fold. The majority of the time they will fold and you get valuable antes and blinds. Even if they do call you, you could still win the pot. Eventually, your opponents will come across a great hand but by then you have built up your stack by stealing antes and blinds.
Remember, it works MOST of the time and it isn't an ideal stragedy for advanced players. But for beginner and novice players, it's an effecive weapon. It neutralizes an advanced player's skill advantage.
The article concludes with one last thing to bear in mind. "If you're contemplating an all-in play, it's also extremely important to factor in your stack size in relation to the blinds. The larger the discrepancy, the less effective the all-in move becomes."

It sounds very much based on Sklansky's Beginners Tournament Strategy... basically you're going all-in with a relatively wide range of hands, so that you're pushing all-in often enough that if you're never called then you're beating the blinds and building up a stack, but selective enough that even if you're behind when you're called you have some chances of making the best hand.
It's not that effective for advanced players, who can make a 4xBB raise to try and take the pot, and then try to out-play any callers on the flop, rather than being stuck waiting to find out whether their cards held up or improved as needed with all of their chips on the line.
That said, if you can't be bothered to pay that much attention, but want to try to win some money, then you can try the Sklansky approach in a freeroll - you can mostly do something else, and just go all-in on the occasional hand - nice and easy to play, and although you'll generally bust out outside the money, I have played mostly against the strategy once or twice and actually placed in the money on a freeroll... (I say freeroll because while it's a losing strategy in a buy-in game generally, just reducing the advantage better players have over you, with a freeroll it allows you to try to win some money with an absolute minimum of attention or effort with nothing to lose).

I don't like all-in very often. Besides the obvious big pocket-pairs, sometimes I'll go all-in with a small pocket-pair if I think I'm going to be up against overcards.

In MTTs it is sometimes a good idea to go all-in (depending on your opponents) just before the money. A lot of people are just wanting to coast into the money and won't put their chips on the line. You can pick up alot of blinds/antes which will give you a better chance going into/at the final table.

The other I utilize all-in would be if I think my opponent is bluffing (i've got a good read). Sometimes this will blow up on you, opponent may draw out or.. if you've misread you could be dominated. But 9/10 when I raise all-in for this reason, I take it down right there.

Now we know why there are so many donks out there going all-in at the drop of a hat, they read Negreanu, and Sklansky


zinzan1000

I hate going all-in preflop...but when I do I prefer to have high cards instead of small pairs..I think you have less of a chance at being a huge dog this way. I also like to push with 9-10 I cant really tell you why.

For me playing the all-in call with small pp or connector cards is just too risky, unless i am at a table full of tight playing players, otherwise i try to avoid the all-in call in thoses situations. Yes it can be the right move if you have a good read on your table mates. Usually when i do call 'All-in' it tends to be a last resort for me to stay in the game.

I usually only go all-in pre-flop if I'm in the last 20% of players left ( speaking of tourney play) and only have about 3-4 blinds left.In a cash game,almost never pre-flop.After the flop I will if someone is betting into me and at the moment I know I have the best hand,simply to keep my opponent from bettering his hand.

I have stayed alive in most of my recent MTT's by strategically going all-in. Usually, it is when I know it will be a showdown between me and another person and I have some type of hand, such as an ace and medium to high kicker or medium pocket pair.

By the time I get to this point, the table is down to 4 or 5 players and the play gets to be more loose.

And I don't do this unless I'm the short stack. Where the blinds are getting big enough to take 25% of my stack or more.

I've gone from short stack to in the money by using this strategy.

This doesn't work all the time, but it has worked for me all but 1 tournament.