When to Call a Preflop All-In
The only fundamental thing that separates no limit hold’em and limit hold’em is the fact that, at any time, either player can choose to go all-in, placing all of his remaining chips in the center and forcing the opponent to make a decision for the greatest possible stakes without the hand playing out any further.
All-ins may seem threatening or scary at first, but to an expert poker player, they are actually a relief. Once an opponent goes all in, the hand is over. You will either fold or call, and so long as you make the right choice more often than not, you’ll come out ahead. Understanding all-ins is especially important for Sit and Go players, who will inevitably get all-in at some point in every match.
The fundamental rule for calling an all-in: If there’s no money in the pot and your opponent goes all-in, you should call with 66% of the hands that he jams. The Fundamental Rule of Calling All-Ins is the rule of thumb that I use when deciding whether or not my hand is good enough to call an all-in. Let’s apply it to a few different situations so you can understand how it might help you out of a jam (no pun intended).
Example: It’s the first hand of a sit and go. Your opponent goes all-in and you expect him to have a range like 88+, AT+. You have ace-queen. Should you call?
The first step is to evaluate your opponent’s hand-range when he goes all-in. If he is an expert player, his hand range is probably KK+, AK. Some good players will go all-in with these hands on the first hand in order to take advantage of unsuspecting players who call loosely. If your opponent is a very bad player, he might be doing this with any two cards.
In our example, we’ve assigned our opponent a range like 88+, AT+. If we fold the bottom 33% of his range and call with the top 66%, according to the Fundamental Rule of All-Ins, we should call with a hand like TT+, AQ+. So, in our example, ace-queen IS a call.
Example: Our opponent is going all-in every hand with seven big blinds. What range should I call with?
In this example, the blinds are no longer small relative to our stacks. The money from the blinds represents a significant portion of the money wagered by our opponent. In theory, since there is always money from the blinds to be won, our calling range is always wider than 66% of our opponent’s all-in range, but in practice, it only changes our strategy when the money in the center (whether it is blind money or money put in the pot by a raise) represents 5%-10% of the remaining stacks.
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