All To The Good

“Situational awareness” can obviously refer to many things, as there are innumerable situations which can occur in a poker game. Many of these are somehow based on your opponents. For just a second, forget about trying to figure out what the other player’s cards are. There are concrete things that you know for a fact. These facts are what I’m referring to when I say “situational awareness”. Here’s a short list:

• position on table
• position in tournament
• chip stack
• opponents’ chip stacks
• numbers of players left in tournament
• number of players in hand
• your cards
• your opponents’ current bets

The tough part about it is: all these things are related to each other, and often an analysis of a combination of them is necessary. These things should influence your decision making, but to what degree can change dramatically and instantly. This is part of the reason why you should never predetermine what you are going to do with a hand before the bet gets to you. I’m not saying twiddle your thumbs and look into space… just don’t make a decision until you need to.

The simple part is that when the betting comes around to you, the decision always come down to one of only three choices: fold, call / check, or raise. I’m not saying it’s easy: how much to raise, how often to call, times when you may want to set your opponent up for a check raise, knowing when you should fold… are difficult decisions based on many factors. This decision is always important, and sometimes critical… it may just come down to situational awareness factors.

Forget about statistics for a moment as well- sometimes they don’t matter either. There are situations where you should even go so far as to fold pocket aces preflop (albeit extremely rare). Let me say that again: there are situations where you should fold pocket aces preflop. “No way“! “Never“! You say? Let me show you one:

You are in the later stages of a tournament. 2 places pay out, 3 players are left (including you). The other 2 players (John & Mike) have huge chip stacks compared to you. I mean huge… they both have exactly 2000 chips, and you have 50. The blinds are 10 and 20. John, the dealer and first to act, decides (for some reason) to go all-in. Mike, the small blind, calls, putting himself all-in as well, with nothing to spare. You, the big blind, with nearly half your stack already committed to the pot, look down at pocket aces. You immediately call, overjoyed at the possibility of tripling your stack. But should you have?

Lets back it up for a second. Breathe (and gather your emotions). Think (always… never just react). Here’s the facts:

• Fact #1: There are no guaranteed victories preflop.
• Fact #2: If you lose the hand, you get paid nothing for 3rd place.
• Fact #3: If you win the hand, the chances you’ll get first place with a chip stack of 150 vs. one of nearly 4000 are near nill.
• Fact #4: If you fold, you are guaranteed 2nd place (because one of the huge chip stacks will take the other out, being that they have the exact same amount of chips).

Taking all these facts into consideration, in this situation, the smartest thing to do is to fold (even pocket aces!!), and guarantee you get paid money. Maybe this is the only situation where it would makes sense to do something that drastic, and maybe that situation will never occur in your lifetime. This is obviously an extreme example of situational awareness, but you get the point… Being aware of your situation profits you.

I’ll write more about situational awareness factors later. Especially in tournaments, it’s a key element to good poker play.