Commitment Threshold

[gregorio]

I assume most people here are familiar with this from Professional No-Limit Hold ‘em. There are 3 key points regarding the Commitment Threshold:

1. Avoid putting 1/3 or more of your stack in the pot, and then folding.

2. The Commitment Threshold is reached when the remaining smaller stack is four times the size of the pot.

3. Once you’ve put 1/10th of your stack in the pot, you need a commitment plan.


<font color="blue">I keep seeing people post hands that have been played without keeping the commitment threshold in mind!!!!!</font> It usually happens with an overpair, 3bet pot (or sometimes just a raise PF), a cbet, and then a tough deicision on the turn. But you know this tough decision can arise as soon as your cbet is called, <font color="blue">so make sure you have a plan before you make this cbet!!!!!</font>

Example 1. 3 bet pot, 100BB stacks:
Villain raises to 4BB, Hero has KK and 3bets to 12BB, V calls

<font color="blue">You have now put in &gt;10% of your stack. So you have a plan, right? You know you may be forced to decide whether to play for stacks. You know that there can be scarey cards like an A on the flop, or a draw, so you need to have some idea of how you are going to play the rest of the hand in these situations, You also know it can be a dry board and you can get raised sometimes and you will have to worry about sets and AA, so you need to already have an idea what you will do if this happens.</font>

Flop 24BB pot: three undercards, with or without a draw
Hero bets 16BB, V calls

<font color="blue">You have now put 28% of your stack. Any bet you make now will commit more than 1/3 of your stack, and once you do this, it is horrible to fold.</font>

Turn 56BB pot: another undercard, maybe completes a draw, maybe not.
<font color="blue">If you bet here, you need to already know what you are doing if V raises, or what you are doing on river if V calls. You need to realize that any bet here commits &gt;1/2 of your stack to this pot. Being willing to commit 1/2 of your stack and fold is huge leak. If you are not willing to commit your stack, do not bet here!!!!!</font>



Example 2. Raised pot, Villian has 80BB stack:
Hero Hero has KK and raises to 4BB, V calls

<font color="blue">You haven't put in much of your stack. Perhaps you are already, a la tuff_fish, dreading the deicision you will have when a A hits the flop, since every time you have KK, there is an A on the flop. But there is still lots of play left in this hand before you need to make a commitment deicision</font>

Flop 8BB pot: three undercards, with or without a draw
Hero bets 6BB, V calls

<font color="blue">You have now put in 10% of your stack, so you need to have a plan. V now has 70BB, which is less than 4x the pot, so you are at the commitment threshold. You need to figure out if this is someone you are willing to stack off against with your overpair as long as an A doesn't come? Do you think they donkish enough to stack off with TP, or an overpair worse than yours?</font>

Turn 20BB pot: another undercard, maybe completes a draw, maybe not.
<font color="blue">If you bet here, you need to already know what you are doing if V raises, or what you are doing on river if V calls. You have reached the commitment threshold, so if you bet here, you should almost always be willing to stack off. If you don't want to commit and have position, check behind and then call a bet on the river. You only have 10BB invested. You can call a PSB on the river and only have invested 30BB. There is no shame in losing that ammount with an overpair vs a set. But if you bet this hand for value, you are commiting yourself. </font>



In these situations , there may be some turns you might decide to bet/fold. Like on a flop of J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] when another [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] hits on the turn, and you don't want to give the SD or a lone [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] a free card but, are willing to accept that a raise means a made flush. This mean you are protecting your hand and not your stack, which is not something you want to be doing, and you have to be aware that you are doing it. This may not be a great decision, but at least you made it ahead of time. Again, this is not something you should do lightly, and only rarely, being fully aware of the consequences. I think is a lot worse in the 3bet pot than in the 2nd situation, because you have committed so much more of your stack already.