![]() ![]() The option to fold is still available to you, even if doing so would be foolhardy given how that would leave you even less likely to recover. In other words, mathematically speaking, you’re “priced in” to call no matter what two cards your opponent has. That means you are facing calling 100 to win a pot of 2,200 - that’s pot odds of 22-to-1.Įven if your opponent holds and has an 88.3% chance of beating you (according to the PokerNews Odds Calculator), that’s still just over a 7-to-1 advantage. The blinds and antes total 2,100, and after your opponent raises you have but 100 left to call, making the effective stacks between the two of you just 100. Here is an obvious example of being pot committed. A player in middle position then raises and all fold around. Making matters worse, on the following hand you are in the big blind, meaning you only have 100 left after posting the ante and big blind. ![]() To describe an extreme example, say you lose a big hand early in a full ring (nine-handed) no-limit hold’em tournament that knocks you back to just 1,000 chips at a time when the blinds are 400/800 with a 100 ante. A Math Problem in Which All Options Have Been Subtracted Away But One One shouldn’t, then, actively look to become pot committed unless the situation is favorable for doing so - e.g., when holding a strong hand that rates to be better than an opponent’s, or when facing pot odds that make committing the rest of one’s stack correct. The same goes for cash games, in which those with bigger stacks can be more creative than those with less. Players in tournaments prefer amassing big stacks precisely because of the flexibility it gives them when playing hands, whereas those with short stacks find their options reduced. even if their opponent has assembled a much stronger “army” against them.īut just as in military strategy, it is generally not desirable in poker to seek situations in which you lessen your available options. Thus any bet or raise or call they make becomes justification for committing to battle for a pot to the very end. Betting chips early in a hand sometimes makes it more difficult for some players to fold later on and concede losing those chips they’ve bet. In poker, players sometimes mistakenly describe themselves as having been “pot committed” as a justification for going all the way with a hand when they didn’t actually have to do so. A possible consequence of such thinking can be false rationalizations to support the decision after the fact - that is, after crossing the “Rubicon” (or some other “point of no return”) to avoid considering alternatives thereafter that might still exist but have been ruled out by the earlier-declared commitment. Military strategists have long discussed the “Rubicon” example and the mindset it represents, in particular the way committing to such an action necessarily reduces options going forward, including the one to avoid conflict altogether. For example, when Julius Caesar led a legion southward toward Rome and crossed the Rubicon river, that action signaled an inexorable commitment to war, with the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” later coming to represent just such a commitment. Take the situation of opposing factions building toward conflict who make declarations suggesting a particular action or advancement necessarily removes peaceful alternatives. It isn’t exactly the same, but being pot committed is sometimes likened to reaching a kind of “point of no return” such as might arise other contexts. Such a situation is determined by pot odds and how those odds compare to your chances of winning a hand. Generally speaking, being pot committed means having arrived at a point in a poker hand at which folding to any bet or raise has become an incorrect play. But it’s one well worth learning, particularly when playing “big bet” games like no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha in which bets on successive streets can quickly transform a small skirmish into major melee. It’s a concept many think they understand, but sometimes they misapply it or are mistaken. ![]() One of the more commonly uttered justifications for suspect decisions in poker is for players to claim they were “pot committed” in a hand when in they really weren’t.
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