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The Fallacy Of Saying You Are Pot Committed
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Author: Marc Weinberg
The following scenario should be familiar to all poker players, and although you cannot "hear" what online poker players are saying, their actions speak louder than words, so I guarantee that you have seen the following thought process play out on your monitor as well:
A player has put in $200 of his own poker chips into a pot that now contains $400. Another player then puts in a bet for $400. There is now $800 in the pot and the first player needs to match that $400 bet to win $800. The only problem is that he is on an inside straight draw with one card to come. There's no way his pot odds of 2:1 justify a wild call like this. But, he loudly exclaims that he is "pot committed" before pushing in the $400 bet. He looks around like he's explaining a very advanced equation to adoring students.
Suddenly, guys who can't figure out how much it costs to add an extra horse to their exacta ticket turn into pedantic math wizards when they get a poker hand between their thumbs. Win or lose you hate to see this play, because the logic behind the concept of being pot committed is so flawed in the first place.
When a poker player says he is pot committed he is indulging in one of the great poker rationalizations, but the problem is that a lot of solid players believe this hogwash. Let me give you an example to explain the problem. Imagine you buy a car and spend $50,000 on the vehicle believing it to be a rare commodity. You then find out that you were swindled on the deal and that the car is definitely only worth $10,000. It can happen, and now you are out $40k and life sucks. Then another car collector comes along and offers to take the car from you for $25,000. The issue is not what you paid for the vehicle. The issue is that someone will pay you more than the car is now worth. It's an excellent deal that you would take every time. You would not argue that you invested $50,000 in the car and need to get $50,000 back. What happened before with the car is irrelevant. Ah, the power of a good analogy...
Now, back to poker. Money that has gone into a pot is NO LONGER YOURS. It was yours once upon a time, but as soon as it went into the middle you divested yourself of ownership. You do not invest money in pots, you divest money that then goes into a pot - big difference. That money is up for grabs and belongs to no one. If you play silly card games with your friends chances are you've played one where if you fail to take a single trick you then have to match the entire pot. Some guy wins $20, and then everyone plays for a new $20 pot donated entirely by you. When the entire pot has come from one person, that person inevitably feels compelled to play on to try and reclaim what was once his. The tense is crucial there. It's not his now, and the gambler's desire to get back to even can usually be counted on to drive him further into the red.
There are times when you are pot committed, but they are times of complete desperation, and really to be precise you are stack committed. Imagine a poker tournament where you have 200 chips left and decide in your mind that you are going to call a pre-flop bet of 150 chips. In this case you might as well toss in the extra 50 chips and go all-in. Keeping a tiny percentage of your stack when you are committing the rest of it into a single hand makes little sense, especially in tournaments. If you're about to be blinded out of a tournament you're stack committed as well in the sense that you have to take a stand right away.
But players genuinely feel that they are bound by some weird feeling of loyalty to protect the money that they have put into the middle. This is the reason why so many weak and mediocre players always protect their big blind, and frequently their small blind as well. How many times have you heard this in a limit game: "I'm getting half-price with the big blind, so I may as well call this bet." That's nonsense. If six players have already called the raise then you are justified to call from the big blind with almost any holding. But if you're facing a single raise, everyone has folded to you, and you're in the big blind with anything less than a good hand you need to fold. I know that the temptation to play is strong. But, if you do decide to play, make that call because you admit that you are a degenerate gambler who loves the action. Do not say to me that you're making the call because you're already pot committed. That really pisses me off.
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