Pot Committed Poker. Facebook is showing information to help you better understand the purpose of a Page. Antonius Scoops Another Massive Pot. Just a week before Blom and Antonius mixed it up for the biggest pot in online poker history, the two were involved in another massive hand. Again playing a $500/$1,000 PLO heads-up cash game, Blom raised $3,000 and Antonius made the call. On a flop of 5♥7♥Q♠ flop, Antonius checked and Blom bet $5,000. In fact, playing pot committed poker means that you have positive expectation of calling the bet of the opponent considering his range in the hand and the pot odds. See, no mentioning of stack size. Now let's practice a little bit. Example: Villain has 100 bb, so do we. Villain raises to 5 bb, we call with 6-6.
I was recently told about a poker hand that illustrates a few key errors that many amateur players make on a regular basis. Somewhat early in a $120 buy-in tournament with blinds at 200/400 with a 50 ante, a straightforward recreational player in first position raised to 800 out of his 12,000 effective stack and the player in the cutoff, who was loose and passive, called. Hero looked down at A♥K♣and decided to 3-bet to 2,100.
While 3-betting with your best hands is certainly the right play, you should make it a bit larger, perhaps to 3,400. The problem with making it 2,100 is that your opponents are not making much of a mistake by calling with most of their range due to their excellent pot odds. Even if you had A-A, you would prefer hands like 6-6, Q-J and 9-8s either call a larger 3-bet or fold.
As expected, both opponents called. The flop came A♦8♥5♥, giving Hero top pair. Everyone checked to Hero, who bet 3,300 into the 7,200 pot.
While the small pre-flop 3-bet was a mistake, the small flop bet is ideal. Notice that if the bet gets called, the pot will be 13,800 and the remaining stacks will be 6,500, allowing for an easy 50% pot all-in on safe turns. If Hero bet larger, he may induce his opponents to make big folds with hands like 9-9 or 9-8, which would be a disaster, given those hands are drawing thin. There is no merit in betting large to 'protect' against draws because most draws will be getting the right price to call even a huge all-in bet. In general, with your strong made hands, your main concern should be getting value from inferior made hands, not forcing your opponents to fold hands that you crush.
Only the player in first position called. The turn was the (A♦8♥5♥)9♣. The player in first position went all-in.
At this point, I think Hero has an easy fold. While he beats the obvious missed flush draws and overplayed one-pairs, most straightforward recreational players will continue checking with those hands. Most likely, the opponent has 7-6s, A-9, or 9-8, all of which crush Hero's top pair, top kicker. Even if the opponent has some flush draws in his range, Hero should still fold because there are relatively few combinations of flush draws, and even then, they still have a decent chance to improve on the river.
Hero made the stereotypical amateur mistake of calling, vastly overvaluing his top pair. As expected, the opponent had 7♦6♦ for the straightforwardly played turned straight.
Many amateur players chock this up to a cooler and act as if they got unlucky, but Hero should have realized he was against a strong range and made the disciplined fold. Do not think that you are 'pot committed' just because you have half your stack in the pot. If you are drawing dead, you are never pot committed. In this situation against this specific opponent, I would have called off with A-9 and better made hands. When playing the small stakes, if you have no reason to believe your opponents are getting out of line, it is usually best to assume they have what they are representing.
What is pot commitment?
Pot commitment is a familiar topic to just about any half knowledgeable poker player.
Poker Pot Committed
At its most basic level, pot commitment means you deem the pot is offering sufficient odds, at that instance, taking into account the strength of your hand, that you will be willing to play for the rest of your chips, if need be.
Whether you actually want to play for the rest of your chips, of course, is another matter entirely.
Commit the fish
When we have strong hands, i.e. strong enough hands that were all our chips to go in the middle, we would in all likelihood be favorite, then we obviously favor a situation where this outcome happens.
In a fantasy world, we could bet certain amounts and every time our opponents would call every time. The real world is different however, these days, most players have some idea at least how to play poker.
Still, occasionally, we can be blessed with a player who doesn't read the board and/or game texture very well, effectively just playing their own hand and not taking into account what you might have.
If you have a strong hand against these guys, you can bet it big on every street, getting all your opponents chips on or before the river, since if they have a reasonable holding, there's a high chance you'll get them to pay you off.
Commit smart players
Against smart or even average players you may have to do something different. Hand reading abilities and ability to figure out your opponents tendencies and thus likely reactions are vital towards getting the best poker result.
Let's take a look at a quick example of how you would go about getting players to commit to the pot when you flop a hidden monster.
$1-$2 NL holdem. 6-max. Your stack $316. You have been fairly active and have been looked up when you held a combination of both good hands, pure bluffs and drawing hands already, so people will be finding it difficult to pin you down to what hand you might have at any one time, exactly what you want to be engineering in the minds of your opponents!
A straightforward player with about $180, raises 3 big blinds UTG, you have 6s6h in cutoff and elect to call his raise. Big blind also calls. Pot is $19. With a hand like 66, basically you are looking to hit your set on the flop or be done with the hand if you miss and someone bets.
Flop brings Kd 6c 2s. Bingo! Big blind checks. UTG bets $15, a bet, that makes it look like at least that he's representing the King. Now if he was a very aggressive player who could barrel 2 or even 3 streets with little or nothing, you might think about slowplaying your set of sixes here as a raise would be a warning sign to all but the most maniacal of players.
You could still make a case for just calling this player on the flop, as if he has top pair top kicker he might very well continue to fire believing he's value betting, however if your reading of him is even slightly off, say if he's got a hand Like KQ or KJ, he might slow down on the turn, or even if he does have the hand you are hoping AK, if he's even tighter than you think he is, he might still slow down on the turn.
Therefore in order to get him wedded to the pot, overall, it's best to get money in there now, and make it more likely that he and you end up stacking him. So how much should you make the raise for on the flop. Your opponent has $159 left.
So $34 already in pot, if you raise him another $28 that makes the pot $90 if he calls. Leaving him $131. A standard enough half pot size bet on the turn of $45 on turn makes a pot of $180.
If he calls this, which seems likely, if he has top pair top kicker, with less than half a pot sized bet in chips on the river, you will have effectively pot committed him, and get all his chips, all achieved by your judicious decision making, particularly on the flop, as your small raise here, sealed his doom!
Having a commitment phobia
How about situations where you have a good hand but not so good that you are 'pot committed'. How do you avoid being pot committed?
Getting back to Ace King and to a lesser extent Ace Queen, raising with these type of hands is pretty standard play in position i.e. either when you are first to play or raising limpers or indeed perhaps even re-raising when in position.
There is an argument for not re-raising from the blinds and merely calling, that way you have a good disguised hand, as no one will put you on AK or AQ, because surely you would have re-raised with them.
By not re-raising preflop it can make post flop play easier. If you flop a good hand like top pair top kicker, then if facing bets it'll be far more likely that someone is value betting you thinking they are ahead, or pure bluffing you, rather than someone betting because they have put you on AK, and hoping that you can't lay it down like the previous example, since there is little chance that they can put you on AK in such a spot.
Therefore, although you have given up on the chance to take the pot down preflop, and you might have to give up on the flop or turn, if you don't hit anything, you have also gained the benefit of reducing the chances of being pot committed.
Slow down
Other ways to avoid getting pot committed are to slow down on the turn especially when you have position.
That way if you have a good but not great hand, your opponent might have folded his worse hands than yours on the turn anyway. But if he had being trying to trap you, when you call his river bet as you will almost definitely will do, you minimize the amount you could have lost in the hand, and should he be value betting the river light or pure bluffing, you'll earn more than you would have done should you have bet the turn and got him to fold.
So it's a win-win situation by being appropriately cautious.
Can't escape pot commitment all the time
Poker Pot Committed
In no limit poker, getting into uncomfortable situations, where you are pot committed, but not so enthused about it, are unavoidable.
Poker Pot Committed Definition
As you improve your hand reading and reading of opponents, the amount of times this happens, while never being eliminated, should be reduced. In addition the percentage of times where you are actually ahead in these uncomfortable situations will increase, due to your improved reading of the game.
In no limit poker, getting into uncomfortable situations, where you are pot committed, but not so enthused about it, are unavoidable.
Poker Pot Committed Definition
As you improve your hand reading and reading of opponents, the amount of times this happens, while never being eliminated, should be reduced. In addition the percentage of times where you are actually ahead in these uncomfortable situations will increase, due to your improved reading of the game.
This will be the case, as you will have managed to escape getting pot committed with second best hands more often, and be getting to pot commitment stage at times when your opponent is actually bluffing or betting light, rather than when he has an actual great hand!
