Here's an interesting article about going all in. I have found it very usefull!

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that poker is as much a psychological game as it is a game of strategy and chance and seasoned vets employ a variety of techniques to gain the upper hand.

In the movie Maverick, Brett Maverick voluntarily loses for an hour straight, in order to examine the tendencies, habits and tells of the opponents at his table.

In his book Super System, Doyle Brunson suggests being aggressive. As Texas Dolly says, “If you want to be a winner—a big winner—you can’t play a solid safe game. You must get in there and gamble.”

If you watched this year’s World Series of Poker you may have noticed a lot of people—especially main event champ Jamie Gold—being aggressive and not playing conservatively. One of the techniques he employed was going All-in, or betting his entire stack of chips on a given hand.

For example, in the 236th and final hand at this year’s World Series of Poker, chip leader Jamie Gold and Paul Wasicka were the last two standing. After a flop of Qc-8h-5h, Paul Wasicka bet $1.5 million. Jamie Gold countered by wagering his entire stack of chips (or he went All-in). After Wasicka called and all pocket cards were revealed Gold led the chip count, had a better hand and since he had wagered it all, he won the 2006 crown.

But going All-in can be a double-edged sword: it can work for you or it can knock you out of the game.

It is fairly common knowledge that betting all-in is a lot easier than calling an all-in bet. An All-in bet in the right situation can force a stronger hand to fold, but of course it can also backfire if your opponent holds a monster.

To do this effectively, a player needs to know that his opponent has the ability to fold a strong hand in this type of situation.

Pros: There is always chance of your opponent calling your all-in bet, especially if you think he has a strong hand that you could beat. In a tournament situation, an all-in bet here could be beneficial; you have the chance of eliminating one of your opponents (in the case that he calls). If you have a loose image, the chance of someone calling is higher than if you have a tight table image.

All-in Pre-flop

When players are short-stacked late in a tournament and the blinds are big—relative to their stack—they may need to take a chance of stealing blinds from other players by moving all-in. Otherwise, they may not be able to last long enough to see a legitimate hand to raise with. This strategy works especially well near the bubble, when most players want to stick around and cash in.

Post flop

One of the most common cases of players contemplating all-in bets is when they have the nuts on the river. Should they consider pushing all their chips to the middle of the table? Looking at the following example, you would hold:

Blinds 100/200, you are the chip leader with 12,000 chips. Button with 8500.

8s 10s

UTG and CO called blind, you call. Button raised 4x blind, all fold to you and you call.

Pot: 2000

Flop: 3h, 8h, 10c

You check. Button bets 1000. You raise to 2500, Button calls.

Turn: 8d

You check, Button checks.

River 6h.

Cons: The simplest case against going all-in applies to rookie players, especially those with a fondness for bluffing. Rookie players generally have no idea how much information they are giving away and are therefore at a serious disadvantage when it comes to out-smarting the other players. Bluffing properly is a ballsy move, and in the long run a necessary part of your playing strategies, but it takes finesse to do it well against even moderately experienced players. So if you don't know what you're doing don't start by pushing a bluff to an all-in situation: much more often than not you're going to get beat by someone who knows you a lot better than you know them.

Another bad time to assume that bluff/all-in is a good strategy is when you're up against bad players. Thanks to the internet bad players often think that the only way to play is with maximum aggression and will therefore call pretty much everything. It's fairly unlikely that your big all-in move is going to scare them off. Here you've risked everything and you have little or no idea how it's going to end: that's usually not a good move.

All-In pre-flop

If you've got the table thinking you're a tight player they're going to assume you've got a strong hand when you do go all-in. You can often use this pre-flop to steal the blinds from stronger players but it will be a lot less effective if you're noticeably short-stacked because your all-in will be much less of a threat to them.

Another big all-in no-no is to push all-in with disproportionately large amounts compared to the pot size. When you bet large like this you are risking your stack against the hope of quickly taking the pot. If the pot is noticeably smaller than your bet then you've risked a lot for not much return: this is a big red flag alerting any experienced player to the fact that you probably have no idea what you're doing and you're just hoping that your aggressive stance will bully everyone out of the hand. If even a moderately experienced player has read you this well they'll almost certainly knock you out of the game at the earliest opportunity: all they have to do is call as soon as they pull a hand that can do it.

What an interesting poet!

Lol very nice! I'm gonna take it with me in my game

Your welcome ^O^

It hasn't helped so far though

lol

lol

Regardless what Brunson says, gambling all the time is a horrible idea. I'd expect better from him.

If you have an opportunity to get all in with AA, KK, QQ, AK, or AQ in a tournament, go ahead.

ive been noticing some very bad play on pokerstars freerolls for example going allin with 25 very bad idea yesterday i had aces 1500 chips left i go allin and 7 other people called wtf crazy donks anyways my aces held up
14000 chips later
so far this week i have won 7 bucks on pokerstars from freerolls all for free thx donks

haha nice one!