Tip #9: Understanding the “All-in” End Game

Your All-ins can be a powerful weapon on end game

Players who are not familiar with sit and go strategy will often look at the frequent all-in pushes at the bubble of a tournament and conclude that the skill of poker is missing. Nothing could be further from the truth, with those who understand the ‘all-in’ endgame properly having a huge advantage over their opponents which translates directly into profits. This article explains the thinking behind the all-in or fold bubble of a typical sit and go tournaments to allow you to likewise increase your returns.

We start with looking at all-in poker from the perspective of pot-odds, showing that – once the blinds get high – your poker playing options become limited. Next we look at decisions in terms of ‘equity’ in the prize pool and show why you need a far stronger hand to call an all-in than to push all-in to begin with.

Pot-odds represent the backbone of logic which shapes poker decisions in all forms of the game. The later stages of sit and go tournaments are no exceptions, with pot-odds plus the range of hands you assign to your opponents being the key factor.

Imagine you are playing a nine-handed table on Absolute Poker. After some beats you found yourself a little shortstacked. You have a stack of 10 times the big blind and open for a standard 3 times raise, say a 300 chip raise with a stack of 1000 and a blind of 100 to keep the numbers simple. A player behind you re-raises all-in to exactly 1000 chips, the blinds fold and you need to make a decision based on his range of any pair 8′s or above, ace-king through to ace-ten and king-queen suited.

Here are the numbers:

Pot = 300 (your raise) + 150 (blinds) + 1000 (opponent’s all in) = 1450

Cost to call = 700 chips

This means you are getting pot-odds of a little over 2-to-1 on the call, and need to win just under 33% of the time in order to show a profit. The question is what hands fit this criteria against the range we assigned to our opponent that were good enough to raise with in the first place?

Assuming you were raising pairs, picture cards and aces then the answer is all of them!

Now we can ask a question, if you are forced to call with any hand that you raised with then why not get the maximum leverage from those hands that you do not want to ‘race’ with in the first place – by pushing all-in. Against most thinking opponents there are a wide range of hands which an opponent might have re-raised you with which they will not call an all-in for all of their chips.

As you can see, when short-stacked, pot-odds play a large role in your pre-flop decision making process. However, real sit and go experts use another mathematical trick to make their bubble decision making even more profitable. This is known as the ‘Independent Chip Model’ and converts your chip stack into an ‘average equity’ in the prize pool. Make sure you read our next sit and go tip dedicated to profiting from this form of play to ensure you are making as much as possible from the tables!

ICM is a powerful model and we recommend that you take the time to learn how this applies to various situations. The free trial of SNG Wiz is a great place to start this.