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When you’re all in on your next hand…

An interesting situation came up in a tournament last night, where a player made a clear mistake. It’s a $200 NL HE tournament at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. We started with 210 players and now we were down to the final 4.
The prizes were:

1st – $14,500
2nd – $6,500
3rd – $3,500
4th – $2,600

and the chip counts were:

Player A – 45K
Player B – 400K
Player C – 250K
Me – 300K

The blinds were 15k – 30k with a 5000 chip ante. Player A is Under the gun, and the question is – What should Player A’s strategy be for this hand (He now has 40k in chips after posting his ante)?

1 – Move allin with any 2 cards
2 – Move allin only with a reasonable hand
3 – Fold and wait for BB, unless you have a great hand.

In the actual tournament, the player moved allin blind Under the Gun. This is simply a terrible play. If he looked as his cards and saw 84o does it really make any sense to move allin when he knows with 100% certainty that he will called by at least the Big Blind? The correct option is to move allin with reasonable hands…..even hands like K5o, and to fold garbage hands like 93o and wait for the Big Blind.

A list of reasons is as follows:

There is ZERO chance you can win the blinds uncontested, thus there is absolutely no reason to take your last stand with a weak hand, when you could get a better hand next hand.

Even if you win the hand, you will practically be pot committed on your big blind anyway, as you will have only 100k in chips, and the blinds will eat half your stack and leave you unable to have enough chips to steal afterwards.

There is also the small chance that there will be a confrontation the next hand that colud eliminate a player. It MAY be worth it to fold and give yourself a chance to sneak up to 3rd place. I’m not saying that it would be correct to do so, as the payout structure is top heavy, but it could be a consideration.

If you wait for your Big Blind to commit your chips, you wont be immediately pot committed the very next hand. This is actually more relevant at a full table in which you will sometimes get to see 8 free hands if you get lucky and survive the Big Blind.

In all there is absolutely no advantage in moving allin with a weak hand in this spot, and you should always just wait for your Big Blind and pray in such situations.

In the actual hand my opponent moved allin (with 84o) and I called for 12k more with my 52o. My opponent was very lucky to have actually had me beat, but when a five flopped and he failed to improve, he was eliminated in 4th place.

Even though such decisions don’t seem so important, as the player was likely to finish in 4th place no matter what he did, these minor decisions add up over the course of a tournament player’s lifetime. You should always pride yourself on making the correct play for any given situation, and for never giving up even when the prospects aren’t bright.

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