All In or Fold: the one decision, and how to get it right

Every player has a short stack, a handful of big blinds, and two choices before the flop: all-in or fold. There is no raising to a size and no post-flop play; when more than one player is in, the board runs out and the best hand takes the pot. The stakes and the stack size are in the lobby. Because the stacks are short and every pot is an all-in, the game is pure pre-flop poker, and pre-flop poker has been solved closely enough that the right ranges are known.

Two numbers decide every hand: how many players are still to act behind you, and whether anyone has already shoved in front of you. Everything below follows from them.

When everyone has folded to you, the question is whether your hand wins more than it loses against the hands that will call you, given that most of the time nobody calls and you pick up the blinds. The fewer players behind you, the more hands you can shove, because fewer players means fewer chances of a caller with a better hand. With a stack of about eight big blinds, these are the shapes of the ranges; the exact edges depend on the stack size and the antes, and the hand strength calculator shows how any hand does against a range.

If the ranges look wide, that is the point. With eight big blinds the blinds and antes in the middle are a large share of your stack, and picking them up without a fight is worth a lot. Players who shove only premium hands get eaten by the blinds.

Calling is different from shoving, and this is where most of the money changes hands. When you shove, you win every time the others fold. When you call, there is no fold equity: you are putting your stack in against a hand, and you need to win often enough to pay for it. So your calling range is much tighter than your shoving range, and tighter still when there are players still to act behind you who might call as well.

• Against one shove with players behind you: pairs from sevens, ace-ten and better, king-queen. Roughly the top 10 to 15% of hands.
• Against one shove when you are last to act and close the action: a little wider, because nobody can come over the top. Add the smaller pairs, ace-eight and better, king-jack.
• Against a shove and a call: only the top few percent. Big pairs and ace-king. Two players in front of you means two hands to beat, and your chance of winning falls fast.
• Against a shove from a player who shoves every hand: wider, because a random hand is behind any ace and any pair. The hand strength calculator shows the equity of your hand against a wide range.

The price matters too. If the antes and blinds already in the pot are large next to the shove, the call needs less equity, and the pot odds calculator shows the exact figure. In All In or Fold the pot before anyone acts is often a sizeable share of a stack, which pushes every decision a little towards shoving and calling.

Put the two halves together and you get the pattern: shove wide when nobody has acted, call tight when someone has. A player who does both loses to the blinds in one direction and to better hands in the other. A player who gets it right is the one shoving from the button with king-eight and folding ace-four to a shove from the first seat, which feels backwards and is right.

Then watch the table, because the ranges above assume ordinary opponents. Against players who call too much, shove less of the weak hands and more of the medium strong ones. Against players who fold too much, shove wider still. Against a player who shoves every hand, wait and call with the hands that are ahead of a random one. Most All In or Fold tables have at least one player of each kind.

Every hand you play is an all-in for your stack, so the swings per hand are the largest in poker, even though each stack is small. You play many hands an hour, and most of them end before the flop with the blinds moving one way or the other, so the results even out faster than in a tournament. Keep at least 50 stacks for the level you play, decide your stop for the session before the first hand, and leave when you reach it. Over a few thousand hands the player who shoves the right range and calls the right range comes out ahead; over a hundred hands anything can happen.

Basepoker pays 32% rakeback on poker as you play, which in a game with this many pots an hour adds up quickly. The rakeback calculator turns your hours into a figure.

Basepoker runs All In or Fold tables alongside its Hold'em and Pot-Limit Omaha cash games and its Spin & Cash. It runs in the browser on a computer or a phone, takes deposits from $1 in USDT and eight other coins, and pays 32% rakeback. Our Basepoker page has the figures and the formats guide has the other games in the lobby.