Point of No Return
Weighing the risks and rewards of going all in
By Kevin Blackwood

I was in the midst of a haircut when the stylist asked me, "Is that too short in the front?"

Though I didn’t voice my complaint, inwardly I was thinking, "Well it’s a little late now, isn’t it? After all, you can’t very well glue the hair back on!"

Poker can present a similar predicament to my bad haircut. Television has made the all-in move popular, but once you’ve pushed your chips into the middle, it’s impossible to take them back if someone calls and you get caught with your pants down.

When to Shove

Late in a tournament, the high blinds become a tempting target for aggressive players. It is not uncommon at this stage to see many players move all-in repeatedly, trying to fatten their chip stacks by preying on the meek players in the herd. Obviously they don’t always have a premium hand in these situations, and so the question becomes, When should I take a stand?

To answer this tricky question, let me share some examples from a tournament at Bodog.com that I recently competed in. I was involved in three critical all-in plays.

My first decision came with 12 players left. I was dead last in the field with a measly 540 in chips (less than one big blind), while the average stack was just under 6,000 in chips. My hand was an ugly 6-7 offsuit on the button. Normally this is a hand you throw away in a heartbeat, but when two players moved all-in before me, I made the unusual decision of calling.

On the surface it appears a stupid play—a desperate act by a player who has given up. But one secret to playing poker successfully is to never quit, and I never do. In this situation I realized that if I could somehow win, I would more than quadruple up (my stack would jump from 540 to 2,460 in chips).

Figuring the Odds

I am still not sure whether that was a correct decision. If I was facing two strong hands, such as big slick and a high pair, my chances for winning would have been less than 20 percent. But in order to win any serious money, I needed to increase my chip stack, and I was running out of time. So, I felt the potential reward of getting back in the game was worth the risk of busting out.

Surprisingly, I caught runner-runner to make an inside straight to stay alive. On the very next hand, I was dealt pocket threes in the cutoff position. At that point, some conservative players would have quickly folded their hand, but with only four big blinds in my stack, I was still in bad shape—so I shoved in all my chips.

The button called with K-Q, but my lowly threes held on to win. Amazingly, in two hands, I had gone from being on life support to having 5,850 in chips.

Lessons Learned

Three hands later I was in the small blind with A-J when the big stack pushed all-in from the button. Now that I finally had some chips to work with, I certainly didn’t need to get involved. With only 10 players remaining in this small 45-person tourney, I was a favorite to make it into the money (the top five players were paid).

But in this particular situation, the raiser was a hyperaggressive maniac who was always attacking. So I called, and was fortunate to see I had his K-J dominated. When my hand held up, I had miraculously gone from being virtually dead to becoming the chip leader—all within the space of five hands. And, despite a few setbacks at the final table, I went on to win the tournament!

I don’t cite these three all-in examples to show how clever I am because, ultimately, my win had a lot more to do with luck than skill. But to succeed at poker—especially in tournaments, when the clock is ticking—you have to be willing to take some risks and shoot for the win, rather than just squeak into the money. This often means putting your life on the line with less-than-premium hands.

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