Requirements for calling an all in

Guys, first some good news, Three weeks ago I finally won the local pub tournament. Although there is only a small group of us, beating some of these guys was a long time coming and has boosted my confidnece.

Unfortunately since then I have made a couple of very bad errors. Its wrong but I keep making them. So how do you discipline yourselves to stop from making stupid errors you know are wrong?

One of the common errors that I have been making is calling all in bets with useless hands, again this week despite almost being certain the guy who went all in on the river with an obvious flush draw I still called holding nothing but two pair.

The main thing I want to know is what is the minimum someone new to Poker should be calling an all in bet with? I know there will be differences depending on position etc but is there a rough rule for starting out? My reads at this stage are not great....

DeSelby

Try to learn how to play a tight- aggressive style, so you don't have to make dumb decisions.

Read this article: http://www.cardschat.com/tight-aggressive-poker.php

If you play premium hands, you will not be in tough spots when deciding to call and all-in. You will either have it, or you won't.

It depends on so many factors. What game type (tourney/cash), what stage of the tourney, which street they shove on, your opponent, your image, stack sizes etc etc

In the example you gave it sounds like you called even though your gut told you you were beaten. Learning to fold in these spots is crucial.

It could just be me but this sounds well played...

Well that's another interesting article I have somehow missed since joining this site. At least its been shown to me now and I can learn from it. I certainly recognise I use to be a passive player and really use to screw up on the flop.

Guy I literally got a couple of mins before I need to shoot off. Tomorrow night I will try to write up the exact details of the hand in questions.

DeSelby

Right, essentially it was very early on in the nights tournament, it only ever lasts a few hours made up of two tables down the local pub. I had intended to play only a certain set of hands but got bored and raised in mid position with A9o. I know getting bored is a bad play especially when it turns out how it did but my mind wasn't really settled after a long day at work.

It ended up being just three of us seeing the flop which was 10A3, I bet out about 4 xBB with one guy folding and the other raising. I decided to call the raise as I thought that the best move. The turn card was a 9. I must add at this point that there was also a Flush draw on the flop, the 9 that just flopped would have completed that draw. I therefore decided to check to see how much was bet. It wasn't to much, about 5 xBB so I decided to call. The river card came down and I again decided to check. This time my opponent went all in. I did think about the chances of him having the Flush, although it was early in the night he had already doubled up through winning several hands in a row of people and I considered the all in to be a bullying tactic. Unfortunately for me my call resulted in him showing the Flush and me going home.

I think for the next few weeks I am going to only call all in's if I myself have a Flush or above, might even call with a high straight.

Whats your thoughts? Go easy on my still only been playing less than a year!

DeSelby

But its totally context dependent, and you might be missing opportunities if you are only prepared to go all in with flush/straight. What if the board in the hand you mentioned wasn't giving a possible flush?

In a pub tourney you probably aren't going to be dealt enough hands to wait around for flushes and straights

Instead of your all in plan, how about just not raising with weak hands?

Balls

JDAWG5, no joke I played the hands and strategy given in your link the other night down the pub and basically ended up in the final two. We decided to split the winnings. Thank you. The main thing with playing this tight was not playing more than a couple of hands for the first hour and a half and learning how not to get bored.

When I got down to just four players and the blinds were getting really high I did open up my range.

bgomez89, Considering my position and the form of the players on the table I didn't think raising with A9o was that bad. I still don't think that was a problem. The problem was calling a flush draw with just two pair. Plenty of times I have won good pots with just an A9o if the flop is favorable.

Micromachine, there are surprisingly a lot of flushes and straights every week. Of course depending on what the flop was I would call an all in with two pair I was just saying I wont be doing it for a while against a flush or a straight draw. I am still going to play my two pairs more cautiously for a while. The plan seemed to work the other night so now its time to test it over as period of time.

So glad I could help

As previously pointed out, it's context-dependent. What were the stacks at the start of the hand, the blind amount, the size of your opening bet and the table positions of the two callers?

Also, you don't have to play hands to keep your mind active. One thing you can do is try to figure out the cards on the hands you're not in, and how they relate to the actions the players chose. Who limped in EP and then called a raise OOP with suited connectors or a small pair? Who completed in the SB with trash? These are only two examples of many; there are tons of other things to track that factor into reading opponents to a level beyond just TAG, LAG, fish, etc. This matters since all TAGs, LAGs, fish, etc, are not the same.

Here's the problem. Tournaments usually keep you shortstacked which means there's much less wiggle room for you to play these speculative hands. Why is A9o speculative?
1)You can't make straights that will likely get paid off
2) To make a flush you'd need 4 of the same suit out there and you might not get paid off
3) You have a horrible kicker

When you raise A9 and an ace comes on the flop, what are you going to do? Bet of course but this is what will end up happening a lot of the time

1)They might call 1 bet and then just fold the turn because "therez like, an ace on teh board!"
2)They will have a better ace then yours because your kicker sucks

I do agree with someone here though who said it depends on stack sizes and what the blinds are. I know that depending on the right conditions I could see myself just shoving A9o in a lot of spots.

If you 'just know' what your opponent has, then the decision should be easy.

My guess is that you dont know what they have as often as you think.

really sort of boils down to only 2 choices, and then really only one...

Either you have a superior read on the villain, or you have monsters....AA, KK, maybe QQ,JJ, and you are stretching it with TT, AK.

Could answer this for you if you were referring to 'preflop' (aipf) in Tournament situations but even then you'd need to provide a handful of details in order for me to give a decent answer.