For beginners, pot odds are harder to understand than pot commitment. I taught an ex-gf how to play limit poker. I taught her that one of the most important concepts was to think harder about her turn decisions than river decisions. (If she was playing 6/12 limit, a turn call for $12 was really a turn & river call for $24). Because the worst play you can make frequently is the following:

Hero is BB with AK

Villain is Button

Folds to Villain who raises to $12, SB calls, BB raises to $18, Villain calls, SB calls.

Flop ($54): QJ2
Hero bets $6, Button raises to $12, SB folds, Hero calls

Turn ($78): 7
Hero checks, Button bets $12, Hero calls

River ($102): 2
Hero checks, Button bets $12, Hero folds

I taught her to always call the river when she had showdown value and she would tell me numerous stories of the crazy hands her opponents showed down when she called the river.

In no-limit hold-em you can't teach the same simple "call the river heads-up with showdown value" because you can huge bets on the river. But the simple - don't fold once you've put more than 60% of your stack in the pot can help beginners a lot. For instance:

Hero (Beginner) is in the CO with 98 with $100 playing 2/3 no-limit ($100 is the max buyin at many local casinos)
Villain has him covered on the Button

Folded to Hero who limps for $3, Villain raises to $15, SB folds, BB calls, Hero calls.

Flop ($47): 762
BB checks, Hero checks, Villains bets $40, BB folds, Hero?

What you teach a beginner here is to realize that a call makes him pot committed. Once he calls the $40, he should realize that he just called $85 (because he can't fold to a $45 turn bet). Since his hand is probably good enough to call $85, he should just push all-in for the following reasons:
- He likely has fold equity (his opponent might incorrectly fold on the flop with a hand like AJo)
- If he's called he guarantees he gets all of his opponents chips when he hits (he avoids check-check turn, bet-fold river)
- He avoid incorrectly folding when he improves by making a pair and his opponent bluffs with air


Again, the worst poker players are those that put in a lot of money pre-flop, on the flop and on the turn and then fold the river when they are ahead. In fact one of the best online tournament pros that posted here on 2+2 would say that he wants his pre-flop steals called and then wanted his flop bluff called. He would then crank up the pressure on the turn to finally get the best hand to fold, but meanwhile stealing a lot more than just the blinds.

Edit to add: you are right that the reason you are committed to the pot is because you are getting such great pot odds and the chance of a weird bluff is always there. You should almost never be folding with 10:1 or better odds. But that doesn't mean that calling it pot commitment is wrong.

Well, you also don't want to fall into the trap of "called turn, therefore I must call river."

It gets complicated, and commitment is not necessarily the best concept to be used here either.

Again, I feel that the reason why such simple idea works is because it helps to teach someone new not to put too much money in a pot without a strong hand. I still don't think it's a commitment issue.

Your example pretty much highlighted why it is such a bad idea to teach commitment as a catch-all concept.

By no means, you should never feel committed to any pot with 9-high, and if you missed on river with money behind, folding is a must.

Your example highlights a leak that's better characterized as slippery slope than a positive example of pot commitment.

Ed Miller released a book called "Poker's 1%" and it discusses how the issue really lies in the foundation of a "pyramid": preflop hand selection.

Issue isn't so much that bad players fold too much on river, but rather bad players see too many flops. When bad players see too many flops, folding on the river is actually probably a pretty good +EV move. How often do you actually see players that would triple barrel a calling station with crap?

IMO, if we are to paint a very general picture of what pot commitment is, I would use something like this:

We're playing very first hand at a table full of strangers and have put in 70% of our stacks with a strong hand. Are we committed? Absolutely.

There's a ton of discussion that can be gone through for each of those questions that a book could be written on. To simplify the discussion, let's narrow the scope a bit. A prototypical game is going to be where everyone has 100BB, the initial raise is 5BB and subsequent raises with be 2.5 times the proceeding raise. There will be one villain. We can argue about whether this is "right," but the methodology is more important than the numbers. Once one understands the methodology, they can adjust the starting conditions and come to their own conclusions on their own.

Let's look at pf first. To get stacks in pf (math committed) will require a 5 bet. The pot will be roughly 130BB and if Hero is facing the call, he needs 36% equity. Clearly if Hero has AA, he calls immediately. Therefore let's look at the required range for KK, AK and QQ to make the proper call.

If you have KK, the villain has to be able to 5 bet either AKo or QQ.
If you have AK, the villain has to be able to 5 bet AKo or 99.
If you have QQ, the villain has to be able to 5 bet AKo or JJ.

To simplify things considerably, our decision most of the time is going to be if the villain can shove pf with AKo. If yes, we are going to call our big hands. If no, we are going to fold.

If we reverse it, things get more complicated because the villain has the option to fold to a 5bet. Their commitment is only about 30% of their stack with the 4 bet. Given PNLHE's guideline of not folding once you've put over 40% of your stack in, it isn't a mistake for them to fold against a probable 5bet range of the standard LLSNL player (AA, with a small mix of KK). To figure out the right decision against their range is a matter of calculating the EV of their folding range and the the EV of their calling range. Compare that to the EV of a call. Which ever is higher is the right decision.

I think the flop is the most important street in NLHE. Over 70% of your potential hand holding is determined there. It is the place where you want to take your time. With a 5BB raise and call, TP is always going to be tricky because the SPR is 9 or so. One long gone poster in the micro FR forum wrote a great thread about budgeting with TP. He turned PNLHE's 4:1 SPR on its head. If you want to gii in with an SPR of 4:1, you probably under the same circumstances don't want to spend more than 4:1 on the hand unimproved. Therefore in our example, you don't want to put more than 40BB in the pot by the time show down comes. In practical terms, we want to spread that 40BB over three streets, either by moderating our bets or checking on one street.

A 1/2 PSB on each street will yield 5+10+20 or about 35BB. Besides this advantage, a 1/2 PSB only needs to work 33% of the time when cbetting air to be profitable. It also denies draws the right odds to call. A lot of people think that their draw is 2:1 to hit. Lots of people will float getting 3:1 thinking you must be weak.

Another approach is to skip a street. If you do then a PSB will yield 30BB. Against a FD, you aren't getting a call on the river if they miss anyway. Sometimes the board is so dry you will need to feign some weakness and skip the turn.

The mistake a lot of players make is to bet big on the flop, then start feeling the pressure of the calls. If you make a PSB on the flop, then try to make 1/2 PSB the rest of the way, they will pay 10+15+25 or 50BB. You've blown your budget.

Now let's look at the situation where you got raised on the flop. Even with the 1/2 PSB, the progression is going to be 12.5+17.5+35 or about 65BB. You've blown your budget even if the villain just makes 1/2 PSB going forward. Move it to a PSB and you exceed your budget on the turn and are all in at the river. In my mind, your go/no go decision is on the flop, not on the turn when facing a raise.

One of the worst decisions to make is to "re-evaluate" on the turn. Another short time poster did an excellent analysis is 2008 or so about what happens when you get raised. The answer is nearly every hand goes to show down. The villain over 90% of the time will bet the turn and river. And the vast majority of the time, the villain has 2 pair or better.

Finally, how do we get our villains to get pot committed? Let them make the mistakes shown here.

"SPR is not Ed Miller's permission to turn off your brain."
-mpethybridge

I'd like to add a corollary to that fine statement. Pot commitment is not Matt Flynn's permission to turn off your brain. Reaching a magic percentage of your stack in the pot does not actually commit you to putting the rest in, and fearing reaching that point shouldn't make you lose value when ranges justify it.

Sure, it's a good rule of thumb of "when the average math tipping point hits," but it is definitely all about ranges, and as ranges change based on actions or board run-out, so should your decisions.

surviva316 made a nice post along those line in a hand history thread that I think is germane to this discussion: (emphasis mine)

So maybe we can redefine pot commitment.

/= certain percentage of my stack

= getting all in is correct because even the narrowest reasonable range dictates the mathematical necessity.

So, there is such a thing as pot commitment since our opponent could always be bluffing some tiny % of the time. It may be drastically different numbers based in opponent and situation, but it is there.

So, we can turn the old $1,000,000:1 odds on a 0% shot argument on its head and say very opponent will be bluffing at least 0.0001% of the time.

I break the game down into overlapping two-street segments, pf/flop, flop/turn, and turn/river. I agree you should think harder about turn decisions rather than river decisions, because your turn decision should really be a multi-street decision where if you call a bet with top pair on the turn, you should already know if you are calling a bet on the river (and if it depends on which card comes and how much the bet is). I can buy the flop as the most important street because preflop/flop and flop/turn decisions are more important than turn/river decisions. I generally see flop/turn as the most important of the three.

Which brings me to how I see pot commitment. Since I think about the game in terms of two-street segments, I think of pot commitment as playing the first leg of the segment in such a way that you still have chips behind for the second leg that you would put into the pot even if the worst possible card comes (unless your opponent exposes his hand and shows you that you are beat with insufficient odds to draw to a better hand). You're pot-committed with two red queens preflop if you would call all-in on an ace-high, all-club flop. You're pot-committed if you have two pair on the flop and you would call all-in if the turn completes both straight and flush draws. You may prefer to check it around, but you're definitely not folding if your opponent bets.

Good stuff. As venice10 analyzed, a lot of the times pot commitment relates to getting raised on the same street.

One reason why bet / folding is actually a good strategy in NL hold'em is that we can size bets where our opponent is pot committed, but we are not - especially when we have position.

Please give an example of this?

Playing $1/$2. Effective stacks $200

Hero has 99 in MP.

Hero raises to $10, HJ calls, Button calls, BB calls

Flop ($41):
6 4 2
BB checks, Hero bets $20, HJ calls, Button raises to $50, BB folds, Hero?

The button has taken away my ability to make a play at this pot without committing my whole stack. If I 3-bet I am basically all-in. If I call, I might face an all-in on the turn (would just be a pot sized bet). Based on stack sizes, there is generally only one opportunity to make a bet that is one fourth to one-third of your stack. Your opponent cannot re-raise without being pot committed, but you yourself are not pot committed.

Ignore. I probably shouldn't make posts at the table.

short stack opens for 5bb, 7 people call. You have a read that he opens light, and folds easy to 3bets. You 3bet him to 40bb as a steal from the big blind with 72. V shoves and everyone else folds.

If V flips up his hand face up and shows you AK, what is the largest stack size he can have that will show you a positive expectation upon calling? I.e. what is the largest stack size he can shove with that we should feel 'commited'?



If V flips one of his cards up, and it is the A, and the second is NOT an Ace, what is the largest stack size you can call and show a guaranteed positive expectation?



If V flips up both of his cards, and shows us AA, what is the the maximum stack size that V can have that we can call with a positive expectation?

You seem to share the common misconception that pot commitment is about making -EV choices or not making +EV choices.

Disagrees with: where the math says call for the rest of your stack

Why did you fold the river if the math said to call?

Nothing in your example is opposite to the idea of pot commitment. Pot commitment is in favor of making +EV decisions.

Pot commitment is mainly about creating the most +EV multi-street lines.

Maybe different bet-sizing somewhere else in the hand is more +EV? Maybe you should have considered leaving Villain with a stack remaining on the river where he thought he had fold equity if he wanted to bluff?

Poker is not a one-street game. It's very often the case, before the river, that "betting the most they will call" isn't the most +EV line.

Pot commitment isn't something you feel should be true but that is opposite to the math. That would be dumb. Somehow you believe that the rest of the world is feeling like they have to lose money based on a book but you have it all figured out!?

Here's what's really happening: You're making up something about the concept that's not there, and then saying the concept is false. There's a lot of that in this thread.

p.s. Miller has an equivalent example (to your flush hand) in his book and obviously comes to the same conclusion you do.

I'm pretty sure that's not at all what BGP is saying. His example was one in which his holding against his assigned range for villain had 0 equity so that it did not matter what odds he was getting. He was never pot committed. The argument is in whether or not he can really assign such a narrow range. Pot commitment is such that even against the narrowest of reasonable ranges, your equity is such that you must call. If V is never bluffing and his entire range beats you, ten you are not committed.

Ignoring what a potentially terrible play it is:
Why do you think that you are comitted when you 3bet this flop?
What tells you that you are?

A good example of not being pot committed:

1/2 NL. $200 effective

Hero is BB with 22

Button raises to $10, BB calls (others fold)

Flop ($20):
2 K A
Hero checks, Button bets $10, Hero raises to $40, Button calls

Turn ($100):
K
Hero bets $100, Button calls

River ($300):
K
Hero checks, Button bets $50, Hero?

Actually the better scenario is where you are calling with a pair of 2s because you don't think your opponent has a pair and two pair come on the board giving you the nut low hand. But even here - it's hard to imagine your opponent calling on the turn without a pair. Even though you are getting 7-1 on a river call, you have to fold.

This is not a misconception on my part, it is a common misapplication used by a lot of people on this board. If we are really going to get into this discussion, I think someone would have to define "pot commitment" (channeling my inner RP here.)

The math did not say to call, the misapplication of pot commitment and the common perception that I should normally be calling here due to spr and the size of the pot are what told me to call. I went with the math and folded (correctly) despite common spr and pot commitment misapplication saying I should call.

This is especially where misapplication of stuff like pot commitment comes into account: making a confused, -ev play around pot commitment which is not a real thing. If anything, pot commitment is a thing like "betting for information" it's not a reason to do anything, it's an effect of other choices. If I had bet a smaller amount on other streets in order to leave villain more room to bluff the river I would have missed value, or potentially even leveled myself into a call here. This is a very common thing in LLSNL threads and it's a huge mistake. Go for value value value, and if that value leaves you in a situation where you think you are pot committed on the river then go through the hand yourself, forgot any stupid rules of spr = x I have to call, and play THAT HAND correctly vs villains range.

No clue where you got any of this from.


There's a reason Miller has that example: it's to show that pot commitment isn't real and any rules regarding it can be broken. (hey kind of like I said).

As I said, pot commitment is a way of dumbing down the game in order to more easily teach it in a book. It is a way of assigning rules to something that has no rules in order to make it more easily discussable. Once you understand those rules you can start breaking them.

The min I'd 3bet to is $100. If he pushes all-in I have to call $90 to win $320 (3.55 to 1). I am committed because I can see him pushing with a pair + combo draw, an over pair, top pair, a flush draw, straight draw, etc. where I'm easily over 29% against his range.

The problem is that because I'm out of position, if I call and check the turn I allow him to:

- Bluff me out of the pot when he's way behind
- Value bet me with a bet when he's ahead leaving himself a bullet on the river
- Take a free card when he has a lot of outs and then either value bet me or bluff me on the river

And I have a hand that has almost no chance to improve and I have no clue what cards are safe on the turn. (Every card but one of the two 9s is a scare card).

A lot of players would call here and re-evaluate on the turn (hoping for a cheap showdown). I'd 3bet against a maniac, but fold against most players that are only raising here because they have a hand.

You're committed if you are never folding no matter what turn card comes (such as A) if he just calls the flop 3bet (and there are players who would do exactly that even if you wouldn't) and if you are also never folding no matter what river card comes if it is possible for the turn to get checked through.

True. There are plenty of times that I think I'm committed to the pot and end up folding because it plays out in unexpected ways.

My view is that it looks like a $30 raise on the flop, but I should evaluated it as: "am I willing to commit my whole stack here?" And since a raise to $100 leaves me with only $90 behind, you could argue that I'm better off either shoving or folding to avoid making a critical mistake of folding on the turn or the river for only $90 more to a bluff.

Maybe I'm missing something that everyone has already said, or just about concepts in general, but I feel like this conversation here is exactly what I'm trying top discuss in this thread.


I tried to stay away from the ideas of a tournament in my OP because this is a cash forum, but I feel the need to bring up my percieved difference as I think it illustrates the idea fairly well.

My understanding of a tournament is that you can become committed to a pot and be forced to make a -cEV call because when you fold, and give up your equity in the pot, the remaining chips that you have do not provide you with enough utility to make some +cEV moves later (which will turn into +$EV moves idealy) so you must sometimes call off getting the worst of it in order to maximize your long term $EV. The chips that you have literally change in $ value as the tournament goes on, and it is because of this changing $ value that we need to consider what our chips will be worth at each stack size.

In a cash game however, your chips don't have a changing value. They don't have changing equity. A $1 chip is always worth $1, and a $5 chips is always with $5. And our stack size has no impact on the value of each chip remaining in our stack. When we have $500, our $1 chip is still worth $1. When we have $10,000 our $1 chip is still worth $1.



As a result, there is no point ever when we are committed to a pot without a range to back it up. On any particular street, we can (and in my opinion) should often bet the most that our villains will call with a weaker range of hands and or exploitable draws and then play the next street profitably.
If I have 1000+ hours of playing with a dumb as bricks stationary whale who never calls all in without the nuts, never raises without the nuts, and never bluffs, when I have the best hand, I should bet 90+% of his stack (or the most that I think that he will call with his draws/weaker hands) but not all in as he will not call the all in bet without the nuts. Remember, he's dumb as bricks, and he never adjusts.
Am I committed to this pot? No. Not at all. If he raises me, I will fold (baring proper odds to call to redraw), if he bets the next street when a scare card hits will I call? No (once again unelss I have proper odds to redraw).

Does this mean that I should have bet less on an earlier street?

NO.

We make a +EV choice at the time, given all of the information that we have on our villain, in this case to make a massive bet that he will call with terrible terrible hands which is very +EV for us. Once our situation changes, and we are presented with new information, and we can reevaluate his range we will make a different decision and decide what our +EV options are.



The caveat here is that we have perfect information on our villain. In the real world we almost never have perfect information and cannot range our villains so well. As a result, when we bet 90% of our stack on the turn with top pair, and he shoves, we only need him to be bluffing a tiny portion of the time for us to make a +EV call. If 95% of the time he has a set, and 5% of the time he has air then we must call.
However, the question becomes, would have called with a worse hand for 90% of our stack? If he answer is yes, he will call with all top pair, second pair, and 3rd pair, then our play was fine. If the answer was no, he will only call with sets+ for 90% then we made a bad play. We could have bet 50% of our stack gotten called by all sorts of weaker hands and then folded (correctly) to his shove.

But this doens't change the fact that we are never committed to the pot. It only changes the fact that we potentially played badly and put our self in a spot where we have incorrectly made the pot so large that we can make a +EV call against a very strong range when we didn't have to make the call had we played better on a previous street / decision.

While we may play terrible or excellent up to that point, on any street, and decision there is no such thing as committment, only ranging.


I'll come back tonight after work and try to defend my self more.

Most of us are hitting different sides of the same rubix cube here.

Cliffs IMO: commitment= range+ equity. Commitment =/ how much I've already put in the pot.

Pretty much it.

Confusion comes in where people have no idea how to analyze range and haven't done enough equity work, and their intuition/subconscious tells them to fold in a spot where lots of chips are in the pot and little are left behind.

I seem to have more imagination than my opponents, so I see all the ways the hand can play out.

If you're pot committed, that means you aren't in a position to make the critical mistake of folding on the turn or the river because you're never folding. If there is a chance of that happening, a raise to $100 doesn't commit you to anything. And just because you're willing to commit your whole stack, that doesn't mean you should. There are times when I am prepared to call a shove, but would much rather see the rest of the hand checked down and I call instead of pushing all-in myself because I see a decent chance that the hand actually will be checked around.

Again I think you're just making up a nonsense definition, then saying that the definition is wrong (that you made up), and that therefore the word is useless.

If you have 80% of your stack in pre-flop with pocket dueces will you fold a AA2 flop? Is there a commonsense rule?

Will you call a river bet if the turn and river are aces? Is there a commonsense rule? Do you really think that everyone who uses the word "commitment" is either not as smart as you or calls in this spot? Or is there a chance that commitment doesn't mean ignore the cards?

I think everyone who finds the concept helpful understands that cards matter. The book frequently uses the term "conditional commitment".

There's 2,530 results returned from a google search for: poker miller "conditional commitment"

Your argument is blindingly obvious and at same time totally irrelevant.