Attacking The Coin Flip
Whenever a situation in poker occurs where a player is all in with a pocket pair and is heads up with another player that has two cards higher than the pocket pair , the percentage chance of either player winning is roughly 50%. There are many names for this type of situation namely a ‘coin flip’ or ‘ a race’. Often these occur late in tournaments when players are desperate to double up or knock other players out and are keen to put all their chips on the line early in the tournament. An example of such a hand is Ace-King heads up against Pocket Queens.
So how does one approach these types of situations knowing that your tournament life rests on a coin flip? It can often mean the difference between winning or cashing in a tournament against busting or bubbling in a tournament. The answer to this is to attack the coin flip. If you are the initial raiser with which ever side of the coin flip, since you are pushing your chips all in you are constantly putting pressure on the opposition player and they often will fold a better hand to you. This creates a highly positive situation where you have worked out that the particular player is trying to avoid coin flips and will only be willing to push their chips when they have a very strong hand like pocket kings or pocket aces.
By looking for coin flip situations to attack, you often also find yourself far more in front of your opposition heads up than actually in a coin flip situation. Often when you push all in with your Ace-King your find yourself far in front of your opposition when then present an Ace-Queen hand. Maybe your Pocket Nines are well in front of your opposition’s Pocket Eights. Again you will never know if you never attack. So by attacking you can open up a better hand than your opposition, cause your opponent to fold or actually win the coin flip! Coin flips are a natural occurrence in tournament poker, although the outcome is often out of your hands you can do everything to maximise your chances of winning.
