Many
Texas hold'em players know when they should push all of their chips in the
middle, but few know the mathematical principles behind this decision. If you
have a short stack and you look down at a hand like AK, you know
that you should try to get all of your money in while your hand is most likely
the best. What many players don’t know is how to plan commitment around hands
which, while often overlooked, is a fundamental part of the game. This is where
the idea of stack-to-pot ratios comes into play.
So, what is stack-to-pot ratio? In its
simplest terms, stack-to-pot ratio is the size of the effective stack divided
by the size of the pot on the flop. An effective stack is the smallest stack
that is involved in a hand. If you are playing a pot heads-up and you have $200
in your stack, but your opponent only has $100, the effective stack is $100
because you cannot win or lose any more than that amount, so basically you’re
only playing a stack of $100 as well. The whole idea behind the stack-to-pot
ratio is to balance your risk versus your reward. We’ll look at a quick example
to start and then we’ll go more in depth.
Say we’re playing a $1/$2 cash game and
we raise with A♥A♦ in middle position. The button calls and both blinds fold.
The pot is now $15 and both our opponent and we have effective stack sizes of
$100. Our SPR looks like this:
6.67 = 100/15
So what does this mean? Essentially it
means that you are more committed to your hand, but this is based on a number
of variables such as the way your opponent plays, their range, the texture of
the board, and what you consider to be your maximum SPR. If the flop comes out 8♠9♠T♠,
then we may have some problems. If our opponent moves all-in here, it’s easier
to find a fold because we only have one pair with no draw to the flush on a
highly coordinated board. Although an SPR of under 7 is generally easier to
play, we need to know why this is true.
Lower SPRs means less decisions after
the flop. Let’s use the same example as above but change the flop. Let’s say it
comes out Q♠3♥7♣ and our opponent moves all-in. We still have an SPR of 6.67
with an overpair and not a whole lot to worry about, so we should be willing to
call, especially against a looser player. As previously stated, stack-to-pot
ratio is a way to balance your risk versus your reward. On a flop like this, we
should be willing to risk $100 to win $115 on a queen-high board.
In this entry we’ve looked at the
introduction to small SPRs; in the next section we’ll look at how playing high
SPRs will change the commitment around your hand and how you should play them.
As always, questions and comments are welcome.
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