The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

If you're not trying to steal every blind or call with very speculative hands and instead play solid values (which is what I consider my style of play), I find you can make most of your decisions much easier when you just consider how much is in the pot and how much it will cost you to try to win it. I think a lot of players isolate the results after the pot is over and if they wouldn't have won it if they considered the pot odds and called, then they automatically made the correct decision. For the short-term, perhaps, but if you do this often over the long-haul, you will come out on the short end of the stick.

A hand that I played last night comes to mind that helps illustrate what I'm talking about.

Six players remain, I'm first to act with Ace-Ten offsuit. The table has been tight, so not too many players have been speculating at this point because of the blinds being quite high (50-100 at this level, with everyone having started with 800 chips). At a full table of nine people, I'd usually fold, but with six players, this is good enough to get involved. So, I decide to raise to 300. The small blind moves all-in, so after calling my initial raise, an extra 150 had to be put into the pot. That didn't bother me, but the big blind then also went all-in, calling the small blind's raise and adding an extra 175 to the pot (this is all from memory, so the numbers may not be exact).

So at this point, I have to think I'm behind. Not one but two players didn't flinch at my all-in and gladly put their chips in the middle. So do I fold? Not right away. These all-ins were short stacks and still gave me plenty of reason to call, given how many chips there were to take.

The pot, after these all-ins, had a total of 1375 chips in the pot (my 300 + small blind's all-in of 450 + big blind's all-in of 625). I had to put another 325 chips in the middle to try to win a pot of 1400. The odds are 1375/325 = 4.2 to 1. Those are excellent odds. Even if I'm dominated (which I figured I was, facing at least an Ace-Queen or better), it's correct to call as I would be about a 70% underdog at what I figured to be the worst scenario possible. If they had pocket Aces, then the odds aren't correct, but with desperate short stacks you should discount this possibility and not let that take you out of opportunities to add to your stack, because the blinds creep up on you quickly and eventually you'll lose your chips anyway.

So my Ace-Ten was up against Ace-Queen and an Ace-Nine suited, the Ace-Queen about a 50% favourite to win while the Ace-Ten & Ace-Nines were each only about 25% to win or tie. Regardless, the odds were still correct to call. And wouldn't you know it, I caught a ten on the turn and river to make trips, both players were eliminated, and I went on to win the game.

You can't second guess yourself when opportunities like these present themselves. My instincts were correct in thinking I was behind, but the pot odds were too compelling to throw away my marginal hand. Short stacks don't have enough chips to protect their hands and that is why you'll hear them complain about a bad beat as they leave the table. My belief is, if you let the odds dictate your play, more often than not you'll come out ahead and you won't have to sweat out tough decisions.