Is going all in pre flop necessary to win tournaments?

[ADRI7HO]

The pre-flop all-in is largely determined by the amount of chips. If someone has a lot of chips, you don't have to push all-in preflop, but if you have a small amount of chips, you have to move all-in. All of this is also affected by your opponents ’play, but it’s likely that you won’t be able to win a tournament without preflop all-in, because that’s what’s going to happen in Heads-Up.

 

[blef121]

i always go all in, but at the beginning of the tournament with good cards and often it helps to be in the prizes, if good cards fall at the beginning, you can go all in patience and not go allin stupidly I think it's better than my tactics

 

[NWPatriot]

But how is that any different, just because more cards have been dealt? Unless you only put in chips on the river, and only with the nuts, then you are either going to sometimes put them in behind (or dead on the river) or "rely heavily on luck alone", because you dont know, what your opponent has, and usually he has equity until the river. Like maybe you have AsKc on KhJh4d, and your opponent has Th9h. Then you are also "flipping", because he has a 12 out draw with two cards to come. So what is the difference between that situation and getting TT all-in preflop against AQ? The answer is, there is none. Luck is a big part of poker, and if this is difficult for you to accept, then honestly maybe its not the game for you? And I mean this in a 100% serious way

If we agree that playing in position is powerful, because we have more information when we are in position, then wouldn't the same be true with additional cards. Pre-flop we know 2/9 of the cards that matter or 22%. On the flop we now know 5/9 of the cards that matter or 56%. We can always make better decisions with more information.

Short stack play leaves us few options and we will need to go all-in in order to take advantage of whatever fold equity we might have. We are not doing this because we want to flip for our tournament life, we are doing this because we have no more choices.

When we do have choices, I do not think tournament all-ins are the best use of our resources. Flipping (between 45-55% equity) multiple times when we are covered is a recipe for hitting the rail. Luck allows us to win these, but the probabilities are against us. AA at 83% equity is not a flip, but if we get AA 6 times in a row, we are "probably" going to lose one of these. But with 83% we certainly want to win some bets, not just the blinds.

A single pair is just not a very great hand, even if AA. We can never have more than a pair pre-flop. We spend a lot of time in poker with one pair hands so we have to play them as best we can. Fold equity gives these mediocre hands a boost when we bet.

To win tournaments we do have win these flips. But, we should only be all-in on our own terms.

Good luck and God bless.

 

[TomCj]

I Doubt It

Personally, I never go all-in pre-flop unless with KK or AA

These are the only hands I feel are better than
a 50/50 chance of winning, and then, only slightly better

I usually want to see the flop
before committing my whole stack

You might gain a slight advantage
if you get "lucky" with pre-flop all-ins

But, for me, I want to play skillfully and build my stack
rather than risk my stack trying to get lucky
and, usually, blow it with pre-flop all-ins

So, no, I do not believe pre-flop all-ins are necessary to win tourneys


TC

 

[fundiver199]

If we agree that playing in position is powerful, because we have more information when we are in position, then wouldn't the same be true with additional cards.

Yes but the opponents have the exact same additional information, so they can also make better decisions, and therefore we dont automatically gain any edge by seeing more cards. With that being said poker gets simpler, the shorter stacks we play with. And the higher the level of complexity, the more skill edges get to show. So it is true, that short stacked poker has a higher element of luck to it than poker played with deep stacks.

But this still does not changes the fact, that as stacks get shorter and shorter, then the best strategy is to move all-in before the flop more and more often. With less than 10BB we should basically never do anything else. And even if we have say 20BB, its still a rather mechanical game, where we basically just go with our hand, if we flop top pair or a strong draw. And we certainly cant do anything fancy like setting up a multistreet bluff or even setmine or draw with good implied odds.

So if OP or anyone else wants to play something with more complexity, then maybe cash games are a better choise than tournaments. Or at least he should avoid turbo games and focus on tournaments with a slow structure. Like maybe those dreaded 4 hour late registration events on ACR. Or the "daily marathon" or "deep stacks" on pokerstars. Or the "Voyage" on 888 Poker. Rather than some freeroll with 3 minute blind intervals

 

[nuttea]

I have this thing in my head put in mainly by commentary from the likes of Mike Sexton that in order to win tournaments, you sometimes have to go all in pre flop. Is this true or can you play entirely by waiting for your hole cards to fit the flop? I ask because if it's true that you have to flip for pots, it seams like you are relying heavily on luck alone. I also have a catastrophic history of being at the losing end when I attempt to flip for pots. Something like only winning 1 in 10 of them. Aces have been the only hand that clears a board most times for me. Obviously you can't just wait for aces. What do you think?

unfortunately, you can't win any poker tournament without showings, you just need to do it right, set traps, understand opponents' pushing ranges, accepting them with stronger hands. of course, this is some element of luck, but unfortunately poker tournaments are not won without it. Especially large kilofields

 

[radartodd69]

unfortunately, you can't win any poker tournament without showings, you just need to do it right, set traps, understand opponents' pushing ranges, accepting them with stronger hands. of course, this is some element of luck, but unfortunately poker tournaments are not won without it. Especially large kilofields

I came to think poker is a game of wits until luck gets in the way lol.