The Power (And The Danger) Of 'All-In'

Things you will learn:

• When to go all-in
• The risk of going all-in
  

All-in! If you've ever watched poker on TV, the chances are you'll have been watching No-Limit Hold'em. And it's not just because it's the most popular game in the world. No-Limit means just that - there's absolutely no upper ceiling on the bet that you can make when it's your action, aside from the number of chips in front of you. Should you wish, you can slide all your chips forward, known as moving all-in.

All-in is the most devastating weapon in your poker arsenal. The all-in move, simple as it is, transforms the game of poker. It means that you have to be ever vigilant as one false step could cost you everything you've got on the table. And, although it appears to show absolute strength, it's just as often used as a semi-bluff and - if you have the cojones - a stone-cold bluff.

Once you've moved all-in, there’s nowhere left for your opponent to hide. They've either got the goods, or think they've got the goods, or they're forced to fold. You can't bluff someone when they can't fold.

One of the best ever examples of an all-in move happened at the 2005 Monte Carlo Millions in a hand between the last two players standing: UK pro Paul Jackson and Phil Ivey.

Jackson called a pre-flop raise with 6? 5? against Ivey’s Q? 8?. Both players completely missed the board, which came down J? J? 7?, but it didn’t stop the action. Ivey bet out, Jackson raised, only to see Ivey come back over the top. Jackson, sure Ivey was bluffing, fired again, but Ivey calmly announced he was all-in.

It’s one of the most incredible hands of poker you’ll see. Both players had nothing and from the action it seems that both players knew that the other didn’t have a hand. But, when Ivey moved all of his chips into the middle, it left Jackson with nowhere to go. If Jackson had moved all-in first, the result would have been entirely different.

It doesn’t always work out that well. The Ivey/Jackson example is one of two players at the top of their game and it shows that, when used wisely, moving all-in is the most powerful and the best possible move you can make. Get it wrong, though, and it can be disastrous. If Ivey’s read had been wrong and Jackson had a hand, his all-in would have doubled Jackson up. If you move all-in and get called by someone with a better hand and a bigger chip stack then you’ve just committed tournament suicide.

If you’re playing cash games though, things are a little different.

In a cash game, as long as your bankroll supports it, you can just dig deep into your pocket and reload. But your bankroll is the most precious thing you’ve got as a poker player and injudicious use of the all-in move is the quickest road to ruin.

So when should the all-in move be used and when should you avoid it?

Before we go any further you need to understand what an all-in bet is in a cash game.

Basically, it’s just the biggest bet you can make at any one time. The question you have to ask yourself is whether this is the optimum bet you can make in a specific situation. To work this out you need to know whether you’re making the bet because you think you’ve got the best hand and want to make as much money as possible, or whether you’re using it as a bluff or semi-bluff.

• Let’s say that you get aces in a deep-stacked cash game
• The blinds are $0.25/$0.50 and you’re sitting on the button and the action’s folded round to you
• The best possible scenario is to get all your chips in the middle with one caller, but how are you going to achieve this?
• Moving all-in here would actually be the least likely to get you a return. You’re only ever going to get called by a player with aces or kings and the rest of the time you’re going to pick up $0.75 for getting dealt the most powerful hand in poker.

So when is it OK to move in with aces pre-flop?

If there’s been substantial action before you. If there's a bet, a raise and a re-raise, then it’s a perfect situation to get your money in. It's very doubtful everyone's going to fold and even if they do then you've picked up a substantial pot for zero risk, which is an ideal situation. The one thing you don't want to do is give all the bettors the odds to call and make your aces an underdog against the assorted other hands round the table.

Another hand that tends to get players over excited is A-K. Potentially one of the best hands you can get dealt in a cash game, it’s also the one that gets a lot of people into big trouble. If you’ve been dealt A-K in early position and you raise to see a couple of callers including the big blind. The flop comes down K? 10? 7?. The big blind bets, you raise, are subsequently re-raised only for the big blind, with the biggest stack on the table, to move all-in.

What was a great situation has turned into a terrifying one for all of your chips. Unless you’re playing on a table of maniacs (and as with everything in poker, knowing your opponents is key to any bet at any time), you’re way behind and you need to fold. Top-pair, top-kicker is an extremely volatile holding in the face of massive strength. But should you have moved all-in yourself rather than raising? No. Top pair is not the kind of handing to be risking all your chips with.

Using the all-in move as a bluff can be devastatingly effective, but again it’s important to use it at the right time, with the right chip stacks. Take the following scenario:

• After the flop your opponent has fired into the pot
• You’ve got him pegged down as a tight player who rarely bets if he’s got nothing, but always slow plays a monster. In your mind you’re putting him on a hand, but one that you think you can move him off with the right bet
• If your opponent is a short-stacked player who’s just committed more than half his chips into the pot. In this case it’s extremely unlikely that an all-in move is going to get him to put his hand down
• If he’s got a piece of the flop, and you think he has, he’s got the odds to call for the rest of his chips. But if you are both deep stacked, you-can definitely get your opponent to fold some of the time

In a lot of instances it’s going to be much more advisable to make a chunky raise. If he’s got a hand that you can move him off, why would you need to risk all of your chips to achieve the same result? And if he moves over the top of you, you can lay your hand down and console yourself with the fact that you just saved yourself a lot of chips. Or quite simply you could fold in the first place and wait for a better spot.

It might seem like we’re trying our best to take the fun out of poker. We’ve talked about the all-in move as one that’s like electricity and we’ve followed it up by trying to talk you out of doing it. Well, if it seems that some of the advice here is contradictory, it’s important to remember that everything in poker is situation specific. The one hard and fast rule in poker? There are no hard and fast rules.

There are a few very basic instances straight off the bat where an all-in bet is most definitely the right thing to do.

• The first is when you’re confident you’ve got the best hand and you know you’re going to be called
• The second is when you’re pretty sure your opponent is on a draw and moving all-in is the best way to price him out of drawing to his hand. If that means moving all-in, that’s what you need to do
• Thirdly, when you’re a short stack, and you’re getting the correct odds to make the call, even though it’s for the remainder of your chips. It’s also fair to say that if you’re ever thinking of making a bet for more than half your chips, you should just move your entire stack forward
  

And then there are a couple of instances that go against the golden rule we made about appropriate betting. Poker’s a game of information. You’re watching your opponents and you can bet that they’re doing the same to you. And if you play a predictable game, your opponents aren’t going to take long to peg you. If you hit a set and you check-call all the way to the river and then make a big bet it’s unlikely that you’ll continue to get paid-off.

This is where it’s okay to over bet a monster. If you’ve shown that you like to slow play your monsters, your opponents aren’t going to believe you’ve flopped a set if you suddenly, out of the blue, make a huge over bet and slide all your chips into the middle. If you’re lucky, they’ll put it down to a crazy bluff and call you light, drawing almost dead with top-pair, top-kicker.

The same is true of a move that’s been called the value-shove. You’re sitting on the river, you’re first to act, and you’ve got the nuts. Convention dictates that you should make a small bet here for value. But that smacks of strength and, even if you get paid off, you’re only making a few extra chips. By value-shoving all-in you’re risking scaring your opponent off. But, on the flipside, you stand to make so much more if you get called it only has to be successful a small percentage of the time for it to be a massively profitable move.

And that, in a nutshell is the power of the all-in manoeuvre. It’s the move that makes the game of No-Limit Hold'em the most exciting poker game in the world and if you’re on the right side of things it’s the most satisfying feeling you’ll get at the table. It's something that should be used sparingly and with good reasons. So exercise caution, make sure you have good careful reads on your opponents and then go forth and use it to devastating effect.