There are a lot of great poker players in the world so winning a tournament anywhere is a challenge.  And, as many people already know, coming out a victor in a tournament is going to involve some luck.  For good players, this luck is often described as coming down to a coin flip.

The traditional definition of a coin flip is going all-in against one opponent when there’s about a 50% chance of you winning.  Normal coin flips involve hands like A-A going against Q-Q or A-J versus K-Q.  Sure these hands are vulnerable against the whole table, but on a coin flip they provide about a 50-50 chance against a single opponent.

Most people don’t enjoy having to participate in coin flips, but it’s almost a necessity due to the fact that blinds are always increasing and you need to take a coin flip or two to stay alive.  However, you can help yourself greatly in coin flips by choosing to be the person who goes all-in first rather than the caller.

The reason why being the first person in on a coin flip is more profitable is because you leave open the possibility that your opponent will fold to an all-in bet.  So if it’s down to you and your opponent, and you have an idea of what the opponent is holding, then make sure you’re the first one into the coin flip.

Another thing to be aware of with coin flips is that you need to avoid coin flipping in situations where your hand is dominated.  For instance, in a situation where you’re holding A-4 and an opponent has K-Q, this is not a coin flip.  You are already an underdog going into this hand as your chances of winning are well below 50%.  Make sure you have a good idea of what the opponent has before deciding to get into a coin flip situation.

Tags: Poker Hands, Tips

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Poker Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.