"It's important to confirm that you aren't committed to all-ins"

[slapdash]

I've been reading "Winning Poker Tournaments (One Hand At A Time)" by Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet, and Jon "PearlJammer" Turner. It's a good book, but there was one thing that didn't make sense to me. Van Fleet is talking about taking advantage of the bubble when he's the big stack at the table (this is Hand 131, for anybody who has the book). An opponent min-raises preflop from middle position, and his read is that the opponent isn't strong. He reraises from the hijack with a mediocre hand (76s), hoping to take it down, making a point of the fact that none of the players left to act have a small enough stack that he'll be committed to call if they shove. He says: "When making moves like this, it's important to confirm that you aren't committed to all-ins behind you." Maybe there are meta-game reasons for this (you don't want to show down a bad hand if you hope to do a lot of stealing?), but he doesn't mention that. But as far as this hand is concerned, surely you're better off if an opponent's shove does commit you? Imagine two hands where an opponent shoves, identical except that in the first hand he has a large enough stack that you can (and do) fold, but in the second hand he has a smaller stack, and you are "pot-committed". In both cases, you can fold (it's legal even if you're pot-committed, right?), in which case the results are identical. But in the second hand, if you really are pot-committed, then that means that calling is a better option than folding (that's what "pot-committed" means, isn't it?). So in the second hand, you are better off because you have an extra, and superior, option available. In fact, if you're obviously pot-committed to a shove, then you have an extra advantage: your opponent has no fold equity if he shoves, so he's less likely to shove, and you're more likely to take the pot without a showdown. Am I missing something?

[muttley]

Re: "It's important to confirm that you aren't committed to all-ins" I think what he's saying that (7,6s) isn't going to win an all in shove from one of the players still to act. So if the BB is down to five BBs in chips and has picked up a hand like (A,J) or (A,10) he might feel this is a good place to push, and the (7,6s) is folding.

[slapdash]

Re: "It's important to confirm that you aren't committed to all-ins"

I think what he's saying that (7' date='6s) isn't going to win an all in shove from one of the players still to act. So if the BB is down to five BBs in chips and has picked up a hand like (A,J) or (A,10) he might feel this is a good place to push, and the (7,6s) is folding.[/quote'] I don't think so. I don't have the book with me, so I can't give exact stack sizes, but it was something like: A player min-raised preflop, and he reraised to something like 7xBB. The smallest stacks were around 35xBB, and he made the point that if one of these shoved, then he'd be getting less than 2-1 pot odds to call, and could get away from the hand. But if there were some slightly shorter stacks (or if the initial raise and reraise had been a bit larger), then a shove would have given him better than 2-1 pot odds to call. There were no desperately short stacks at the table.

[ubermonkey1]

Re: "It's important to confirm that you aren't committed to all-ins" i think what he's trying to say is that it's better to not try this play at all with really small stacks on the table. usually their range is wide open due to having to push sometime in the next 10 or so hands ,so your more likely to get action from them. however if you have small stacks that arent in "immediate danger"then the call/raise is less likely. so yes you end up being in a position where your pot commited and its correct to call, but your more likely to put yourself in this position if you see what i mean:unsure. it also shows how good a play this is in the correct position with the right stack sizes:ok you only ever risk say 2000 chips and its very hard for anyone to get involved unless they have a very good hand,then its easy to get rid of as they are bound to push;). trouble is its very easy to donk away 4-5k chips in this situation because as the big stack you can and should call really.