Pot Committed

word type: adjective

  1. When a player is priced in mathematically to a pot due to the size of his stack relative to the amount of money he has already contributed to the pot.

Forget the Math

While you can do the math to figure out if you are pot committed, it is usually unnecessary. Typically, it is easy to just use common sense to know if you are committed. If you have already put money in the pot and folding would leave you with a pittance compared to the blinds and other players' stacks, you are pot committed. For example, if you have already put 20,000 chips into the pot, you only have 1,000 chips left, and the big blind is 4,000, you are quite pot committed. It would make no sense to fold (the betting likely didn't make sense either, but you get the point).

How Much You Have Left?

It is not uncommon for a player to ask an opponent how many chips he has left after that opponent makes a significant bet, especially in a tournament. One reason the player might ask this is to see how the opponent's remaining stack compares to what he has already contributed to the pot. If the opponent is pot committed, the player knows that if he calls the bet, his opponent will be going all-in in a future betting round, so the player must be prepared to call the follow-up bet. Basically, he will treat the bet as if his opponent has already gone all-in.

Related Terms

Pot, Implied Odds, Pot Odds, Equity