Commitment Issues

Almost finished reading Professional No-Limit Hold'em Vol 1. It's been informative though some sections take a bit of digesting.

It looks like the authors assume their readers are familiar with basic poker theory. I'd say it's pitched somewhere around intermediate level rather than at the extremes of pure novice or expert.

No-Limit play often has relatively long periods of play where the betting is "normal" and there are no all-in confrontations. But any escalation in the action always carries with it the possibility that stacks will be played for. In such situations your opponents mistakes gain you the most, and conversely, your mistakes gain them the most.

Miller, Flynn and Mehta talk a lot about the Commitment Threshold. This is the point in a hand when you have to decide whether you want to get all-in. If you do want to get all-in, you try and manipulate the pot to get your opponent committed. If you don't want to get all-in you avoid making or calling any big bets. It's the single most useful concept I got from the book and I'd summarise it as

"Don't make a habit of putting 1/3 of your stack in the pot and then folding".

Of course it's obvious you should avoid putting in your whole stack if you aren't pot committed. But why 1/3 of your stack? Look at it this way: if your opponent bets 1/3 of your stack and you call, or if you bet 1/3 of your stack and your opponent calls, there is now more than your remaining stack in the pot.
So any significant betting in the next street is going to put you to an all-in decision. If you were unsure about putting in the original 1/3 now you have an even tougher decision about the last 2/3. And you want to avoid tough decisions. You want to GIVE your opponents tough decisions and not face them.

The authors explain the Commitment Threshold concept in a number of other ways which help to make it clear:

• If you're facing an all-in bet after putting in 1/3 of your stack then you're getting good enough odds (2:1) that you should probably call. If you believe calling would be a mistake, then putting in the original 1/3 was probably a mistake .
• Once your stack is 4 times the pot, you usually shouldn't make any reasonable bet unless you're committed. If you make a reasonable bet when your stack is 4 times the pot, you will have put in 1/3 of your stack. And you don't generally want to put in 1/3 of your stack unless you want to put the last 2/3's in.

The crucial idea I take from this is that the time to think about whether you want to play for your stack is BEFORE you put the first third in. An even better time to start thinking about it would be when you get your two down cards.