Don't let a coin flip should not decide your tournament fate(credit: http://www.worth1000.com/entries/91000/91106mRUQ_w.jpg)
You’ve heard the expression before: “It’s a coin flip!” This refers to a roughly 50 - 50 chance to win or lose, and is a very common pre- flop situation. Should you seek them out, or avoid them? Like many answers in poker, this one starts with “it depends.”
Also known as a “race situation”, when one player is all in with a pocket pair and the other player has two over cards, it is a race to see if the person with over cards can catch one to overtake the leader, the person with the pocket pair.
Let’s focus on tournament play. The real question is would you take a coin toss to determine if you were knocked out of a tournament? Slight edges are really only useful in cash games, and then only over a long period of time. An edge is needed to make money long term, but in a poker tournament you are really only concerned with your odds and profitability RIGHT THEN, not later on in the year.
If you have big slick (ace king) and your opponent has any pocket pair that isn’t Kings or Aces, you are behind, although it is close to fifty- fifty. Would you go all in if it meant knocking you out if you lose? No. But what about if you had the other person out chipped? Would it be okay then?
Again, it depends, but generally you want to avoid this situation if it will cost you a significant (50% or more) of your chip stack; partially because of how large it is, and partially because you could get priced in and wind up committing more.
Don’t toss a coin to determine your fate in a poker tournament.
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