Being Pot Commited

[The President 0]

just a quick questionyou hear people all the time saying "i had to call i was pot commited". dont worry i do know what this means, the question i am asking is what percentage of your stack do you have to have in the pot in order for you to be pot commited?for example, blinds are 500-1000 and MP with 25000 makes it 3000 to go. im on the button with 25000, and decide to reraise to 9000 without much (67s, KJo anything like that). He then shoves. am i pot commited here to call with almost anything having put in a third of my stack, or can i still get away from this?

[DCJ001 0]

just a quick questionyou hear people all the time saying "i had to call i was pot commited". dont worry i do know what this means, the question i am asking is what percentage of your stack do you have to have in the pot in order for you to be pot commited?for example, blinds are 500-100 and MP with 25000 makes it 3000 to go. im on the button with 25000, and decide to reraise to 9000 without much (67s, KJo anything like that). He then shoves. am i pot commited here to call with almost anything having out in a third of my stack, or can i still get away from this?

In this situation, you'd need to call the $16k that you have left to win $34k in the pot, giving you just better than 2:1 on your bet. If you hold AK, the only two hands that give you worse odds of winning the hand are AA & KK. If the other player holds QQ, the odds that you'll win the hand are about 1:1. If your opponent doesn't hold AA or KK, you're getting great odds to call the all in bet.Understanding pot odds is important to understanding the game and playing it well.

[SlackerInc 0]

just a quick questionyou hear people all the time saying "i had to call i was pot commited". dont worry i do know what this means, the question i am asking is what percentage of your stack do you have to have in the pot in order for you to be pot commited?for example, blinds are 500-100 and MP with 25000 makes it 3000 to go. im on the button with 25000, and decide to reraise to 9000 without much (67s, KJo anything like that). He then shoves. am i pot commited here to call with almost anything having put in a third of my stack, or can i still get away from this?

DC covered your answer pretty well. But I would just note that the 67s would probably be a better hand in this situation than KJos as the latter is more likely to be dominated. (OTOH, it could also give you an overcard to QQ, so maybe that balances out a bit.) Also, your raise was on the borderline (or across it, depending on whom you ask) of being more of your stack than you should ever put in the pot without pushing.ETA: My last point is directly related to the issue of being pot committed. If you are putting in so much of your stack that you'd have to call off all your chips anyway, you should just get maximum fold equity by being the one to push all in rather than calling all in. There are hands that someone might push in that spot (say, 99-JJ or AQs) that they might have folded if you were the one who put in all your chips to begin with.

[linkwood 0]

Just to reiterate what they said, it really doesn't come down to how much of your chips you put in the pot but rather how big the pot will be in relation to the bet you have to call. And this relates to your hand and how you believe your hand stacks up against the range of hands you believe your opponent could have in that situation. So, in this instance, getting over two to one you would have to believe that your odds of winning the pot are two to one (about 33%) or better. If you believe that your opponent would only make this move with aces and kings then you will be worse than 2-1 and you need to fold.

[The President 0]

DC covered your answer pretty well. But I would just note that the 67s would probably be a better hand in this situation than KJos as the latter is more likely to be dominated. (OTOH, it could also give you an overcard to QQ, so maybe that balances out a bit.) Also, your raise was on the borderline (or across it, depending on whom you ask) of being more of your stack than you should ever put in the pot without pushing.ETA: My last point is directly related to the issue of being pot committed. If you are putting in so much of your stack that you'd have to call off all your chips anyway, you should just get maximum fold equity by being the one to push all in rather than calling all in. There are hands that someone might push in that spot (say, 99-JJ or AQs) that they might have folded if you were the one who put in all your chips to begin with.

so would you say that if you have put a third of your chips in this spot you have to prety much put your whole stack in here if he then shoves?also if you are saying that you might as well shove here, is it basically true that the reraise with a less than premium hand is a pretty poor move here, and its best to just fold and move on?

[DCJ001 0]

so would you say that if you have put a third of your chips in this spot you have to prety much put your whole stack in here if he then shoves?also if you are saying that you might as well shove here, is it basically true that the reraise with a less than premium hand is a pretty poor move here, and its best to just fold and move on?

Yes.Yes.

[Acid_Knight 2]

Honestly, I feel that most of this is wrong. Being pot committed occurs when you've put enough of your chips into the pot so that you really can't fold because of the pot odds you're being offered. However, in your example above, you're not even close to pot committed. The blinds are still really really small and if you fold, you'll still have 160BBs to play with. In this situation, it wouldn't really matter that much to me if I'd put in half of my chips. If I thought I was beat, I'd fold becuase I still had enough chips to play basically any style that I wanted to play. If the blinds were 500-1000 and the same hand happened, you are getting closer to being committed to the pot. Now you have a significant portion of your stack in the pot and not many chips to maneuver with if you're wrong.Understanding pot odds is crucial but understanding that you don't always *have* to call just becuase the pot may be laying you a good price is also very important. Here, if you reraised to 10K for some odd reason with 67 suited and he pushed, you'd only have to call 15K to win a pot of ~35K, so you'd be getting 3.5-1, but the fact is that it'd be a terrible play to call here since you'd still have 15,000 chips which is more than enough to play with blinds of only 50-100.

[linkwood 0]

Honestly, I feel that most of this is wrong. Being pot committed occurs when you've put enough of your chips into the pot so that you really can't fold because of the pot odds you're being offered. However, in your example above, you're not even close to pot committed. The blinds are still really really small and if you fold, you'll still have 160BBs to play with. In this situation, it wouldn't really matter that much to me if I'd put in half of my chips. If I thought I was beat, I'd fold becuase I still had enough chips to play basically any style that I wanted to play. If the blinds were 500-1000 and the same hand happened, you are getting closer to being committed to the pot. Now you have a significant portion of your stack in the pot and not many chips to maneuver with if you're wrong.Understanding pot odds is crucial but understanding that you don't always *have* to call just becuase the pot may be laying you a good price is also very important. Here, if you reraised to 10K for some odd reason with 67 suited and he pushed, you'd only have to call 15K to win a pot of ~35K, so you'd be getting 3.5-1, but the fact is that it'd be a terrible play to call here since you'd still have 15,000 chips which is more than enough to play with blinds of only 50-100.

i think that's what i was trying to say but then the ADD kicked in (stupid brain ). so yeah, what he said.

[The President 0]

Honestly, I feel that most of this is wrong. Being pot committed occurs when you've put enough of your chips into the pot so that you really can't fold because of the pot odds you're being offered. However, in your example above, you're not even close to pot committed. The blinds are still really really small and if you fold, you'll still have 160BBs to play with. In this situation, it wouldn't really matter that much to me if I'd put in half of my chips. If I thought I was beat, I'd fold becuase I still had enough chips to play basically any style that I wanted to play. If the blinds were 500-1000 and the same hand happened, you are getting closer to being committed to the pot. Now you have a significant portion of your stack in the pot and not many chips to maneuver with if you're wrong.Understanding pot odds is crucial but understanding that you don't always *have* to call just becuase the pot may be laying you a good price is also very important. Here, if you reraised to 10K for some odd reason with 67 suited and he pushed, you'd only have to call 15K to win a pot of ~35K, so you'd be getting 3.5-1, but the fact is that it'd be a terrible play to call here since you'd still have 15,000 chips which is more than enough to play with blinds of only 50-100.

sorry the OP was really unhelpful. blinds are meant to be 500-1000 not 50-100! that makes a raise to 3000 make much more sense!

[SlackerInc 0]

sorry the OP was really unhelpful. blinds are meant to be 500-1000 not 50-100! that makes a raise to 3000 make much more sense!

Isn't that what it always said? I know when I responded, I was thinking both you and villain were in the Yellow Zone.

[copernicus 0]

To add to the above, I think it was Harrington who said: "Nevertheless, there is no such thing as being pot committed when you KNOW youre beat". Not that profound really, since that means you need and never are getting "infinite pot odds", but I laughed when I read it.

[shpaget 0]

To add to the above, I think it was Harrington who said: "Nevertheless, there is no such thing as being pot committed when you KNOW youre beat". Not that profound really, since that means you need and never are getting "infinite pot odds", but I laughed when I read it.

But it needs to be said...for some reason, this statement has always been common sense to me, and I know I've said it on these boards, long before I heard anyone else say it.Yet an incredible amount of people continously throw the rest of their chips into the pot, feeling "pot committed", even knowing they are drawing dead.It's like they're taking Sklansky's advice from SSHE (call one bet on the river in a very large pot even if you know you're beat), and applying it everywhere.

[SlackerInc 0]

To add to the above, I think it was Harrington who said: "Nevertheless, there is no such thing as being pot committed when you KNOW youre beat". Not that profound really, since that means you need and never are getting "infinite pot odds", but I laughed when I read it.

As I mentioned over at the thread about the Snyder book, he has a different definition of pot odds for tournaments: that even if you've only got a two outer or whatever and are technically not getting the "right price", you should still go for it if the alternative is to be left with a crippled stack that has little realistic chance of making it to the money.