Now here is where the gambling part comes into play and lady luck needs to be watching as no matter what starting hand you have you can be beat on an all in - there are no guarantees ! We are playing No Limit Hold em after all and thats one of the elements that makes it so exciting.

Although there is no Magic wand when going all in against another player , you can greatly increase your percentages chances of winning by not entering into an all in unless you have certain cards . If your not forced to call i.e your not in the pot up to your neck , then I would only call an all in pre flop with AA KK QQ assuming that you are in the very early stages of a tournament as when the table gets smaller and the blinds are bigger then things change and you need to loosen up - confused yet? :-):

You will find as you start playing that other players especially inexperienced ones but even some good players will treat numeruous hands as a potential all in hand. You will win chips off these types of players but you will have to bide your time and by knowing from watching them what kind of hands they go all in on you will catch them out and take their chips.

For example the other day there was a guy at my table who repeated an all in on an

what I would call a low pair . He has a good chance against an unpaired hand but if the caller has even a 9 paired and he makes no 8 on the flop he is beat so its not a hand I would want to be going all in on but away he goes. Anyway as the game unfolds I notice he has done this twice and so I am waiting for it again - he makes an all in and I have

now two things to remember here - I have studied this guy for a while at the table and I have more chips than him so in a head to head I am not going out of the tournament so I take a risk that he is following the same pattern and that he will have a lower pair putting me squarley in the driving seat.

He does indeed have a low pair 4 4 and so my 10 10 is looking mighty nice until the flop comes out

He makes trips and the turn and the river dont help me out and I have a hard luck story to tell . So as you can see you can be ahead pre flop but still crash out .

So in tournament play unless you have

- -

AA's the KK's or the QQ's then check your stack before making a call of an all in as if it will put you out of the tournament then it could be time to fold what may be the best cards.