Were you really pot committed?

Whenever you’re in a situation where you’ve shoved most of your stack in, the pot odds you get are overwhelmingly good and you only have a tiny part of your stack left, you are theoretically pot committed. Being pot committed means to be in a situation where you’ve already committed such a large portion of your stack that you might as well shove it all in, you wouldn’t alter the situation in any way.

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding pot committed-ness though. The problem stems from the fact that most weak players use it as an excuse to justify their bad calls in front of themselves and in front of the other people around the table or at the rail. “I was pot committed so I had to make the call” – you’ll hear that quite often, especially online where bad play is more prevalent.

The most common beginner mistakes are usually justified by the “pot committed” excuse. Beginners commit loads of mistakes, and they let them compound. At the end of it all, there’s the “Pot Committed” line meant to save face, self esteem and in the same time to prolong the rookie’s mistake-ridden agony.

Here’s how the faulty thought-process works: being impatient, the rookie plays too many starting hands to begin with. This leads to gambling on the flop. This gambling-spirit will then spread to the turn and the river too and the rookie ends up chasing too many drawing hands and missing them one after the other. At the end of it all, given the amount of money he’s already spent on the chase, the rookie considers that he’s pot committed and he shoves it all in regardless of whether or not he made his hand. After all, he’s already pot committed. Obviously, in such a situation one can say our rookie cannot possibly be pot committed on a hand in which he probably couldn’t even beat a bluff. Determining though whether someone is pot committed or not, is a much more delicate issue.

Some professional players claim that if someone has already shoved 90% of his stack in and the pot is huge, the pot odds make it worth-while to make the shove on just about any two pocket cards. Let’s say the pot gives you 40-1 odds. This means you only have to win on such hands once every 40 times to make it a good call indeed. These professionals however are looking at the picture from their own perspective: they would never take a hand as far as the river chasing after an unlikely draw, so whenever they make it past the river on a hand on which they commit such a large percentage of their stack, they have something that gives them at least some equity.

In reality, if you know you’re beat, there’s not much sense in calling, even if you’ve already shoved $900 into the pot and you have $10 left. When you’re beat you’re beat. After the river, there are no more cards that can help you, so if you know you’re beat, you’re not pot committed in any way.

You can be pot committed on a perfect hand situation for sure. You have a good hand but you suspect that your opponent’s hand is marginally better. Even in such situations, getting out of the pot when faced with the all-in call makes perfect sense if you have a good read and a strong suspicion that you’ve been outdrawn.

According to Sklansky, whenever you play a hand the same way you would if you could see your opponents’ hole cards, you play correctly. Whenever you play differently, you commit a mistake and give up value.

Before you make that call ask yourself this: if I could see his hand, would I make this call? Am I really pot committed or not? After all, being pot committed and being foolish is not the same thing.

Don’t be foolish when it comes to rakeback either. Signing up to a rake back deal only takes up a few moments of your time and it will reward you generously if you’re indeed an active real money player. Never give up on an edge, regardless of how small it may be. Rakeback is a big edge. Giving up on it is the equivalent of a huge mistake which will come back to haunt you.