I am seeing a trend of near all-ins - whereby players go all-in save for one BB. The first time I saw this I assumed it was an accident - that the villain dragged his slider to go all-in but didn't drag it far enough across but it is happening far too often for that to be the case. It also seems to e a South American phenomenon.

Has anyone else seen this? And why hold back one blind - even if you won the next hand you're still on life support.

I actually don't really get it either unless you're in the money or on the bubble hoping to eek up a pay jump. It doesn't really do anything unless it's a bounty tournament.

Yea I have seen it too. The idea is if you are bluffing, then you still have 1bb left and maybe can spin it back up. And that value is more than the extra 1bb you gain when you have it and are called. They leave 1bb exactly because that is what you need to win the full blinds and antes.

Its an exploitative play that works because people arent going to try to bluff raise someone with 1bb remaining. If you think there is a chance they you are being bluffed then you call off with Ahi or any sd value at all, since folding a winner for 1bb more is such a disaster.

I always assume it's an attempt look nutted by making a weird bet - often a pretty weak holding in my experience

No one is folding leaving themselves back that amount ever, ever in a non-sattelite/DoN format (etc). I guess you could say that it allows you to not get isolated as easily since the minraise is based on the near jam. But I can't imagine it's ever worth to fold getting those pot odds.

Have seen it too. best guess from me and my coach was that it was to protect against the small chance of a disconnect on the stone bubble, or to manipulate HUD stats somehow.

at low stakes it's more likely they just saw someone doing it once and then started doing it themselves because they thought for some reason it was good.

I have seen it from some really good players, at least on the live scene. There was a couple year period 2018-2019 where I saw it fairly regularly from regs and recall seeing a strategy article somewhere talking about it.

It is kinda funny watching someone struggle in that spot with like Khi when they get shoved on.


If you are bluffing with no sd value, IE 6hi, 7hi, 8hi type hands would you really call to make sure they arent bluffing with worse? Even getting 100:1 or more?


But yes, the fact that you have to end up calling off kind of defeats the purpose of it, which is why I dont really see it anymore. It was just a super exploitative idea that loses value if you ever fold a winner. But if villain responds by overbluffing, (and one or two bluff combos too many can be a serious overbluff in a spot like this) then it makes a ton of money.

Its one of those high upside vs bad adjustments and low downside (1bb of value sometimes) exploits that is basically breakeven vs proper play. Which is why I have only seen it on the regional live circuit, rarely if ever online.


Side note.. I have considered including this in my PKO strategy for river all ins. But it just seems like too much complications and not enough value.

The point rather is that the worst hand vs the best hand still has equity preflop so you can't just give up all that equity in hopes of spinning a 1bb stack on the next hand. Again this is assuming not some massively weird icm spot or satty etc.

oh preflop... I guess OP didn't specify a street

I am referring specially about doing it on the river, I should have been more clear. It was something that was becoming trendy a couple years ago on the live circuit.

But yea doing it instead of shoving preflop on a pay bump isnt unreasonable, just to give yourself another 30s or whatever for someone to bust.

I've seen it preflop, and they don't even keep 1BB, so they def won't fold to a shove.

So it's more a pay jump thing ... except some of them do it also when there is no pay jump.

Just cause they saw it on youtube probably...

saw this mentioned in a runitonce video.
it's in the hope that someone with a marginal but better hand folds it out when they are multitabling because all they pay attention to is raise and auto pilot thinking there will be further action on further streets and not the stack behind it while they move on to the next window.
i mean, it's one explanation. but it's a ploy, if anything.

There are a few reasons people do this. Most of them have been mentioned, but another reason is you are building fake hud stats (your fold to raise/3bet/etc is lower.)

Can still come back from 1bb!


Say you're bluffing with the nut low. You should be folding to keep your last 1bb. Also, does going all in for 50bb change their call/raise range if you instead bet 49bb?

Are you asking me if theoretically or realistically? Also it's been stated it's relating to preflop. It also seems very unlikely that you show up on the river with the nut low hand anyways. In theory their range should be tighter as the bet/jam size increases.

I've found that the super aggressive players will all-in almost every hand, and instantly rebuy if they get knocked out, then do it again as soon as they pop back onto the table rapidly upwards of 5+ rebuys.

The only way to stop this unfortunately is to use every second of your timer to delay them mucking a garbage and doing it again, it doesn't stop them from doing it until registration closes, but if you are being forced to choose a hand to jam with you might as well jam up their all in blitzing.

I've found they get looser as registration close nears, and really two broadway cards have a good chance at winning, good luck!