You are sitting at the poker table and one of the people sitting there with goes all in. What exactly should you do you wonder. Wonder no more, in this article I will explain exactly what you should in a when someone seated at your poker tables moves all in. This strategy only applies to forms of poker tournaments. However, whether it is an online poker tournament, a casino poker tournament, or even a poker tournament in your buddy’s basement this strategy should be followed as a rule of thumb. Far more than simple strategy, many professionals feel following this guideline is actually part of poker etiquette and that it should be followed to a tee.

Whenever you are playing in a poker tournament your ultimate goal is to outlast the other players. Of course in able to do this you will want to make sure you are playing your best possible game, but one very important part of playing your best possible game is sadly often over looked. For one reason or another; be it they are nervous, caught off guard, or simply do not know the preferred procedure, people more often than not fail miserably when an opponent goes all in, and inevitably often cause only themselves harm. At a regular poker table players success is based largely on reading their fellow players correctly. At an online casino poker table it is impossible to read another player’s face but patterns in the way they play may still give a clue to the hand they hold.

The proper way to handle a player going all in during a poker tournament is to use team work in order to get him or her out. I know this may sound odd as poker is generally considered an everyman for himself type of game, but this is the one area of poker where people get to show they are a team player. The reason you want to work as a team when a player moves all in simply boils down to odds. You do not know what the person who has moved all in is holding in their hand, you may possibly have them beat, but there is also a chance you may not have them beat. Even if you have pocket aces there is still a chance that he will catch two pair, three of a kind, a straight, or even a flush effectively     beating you and doubling themselves up.

The best way to prevent this from happening is of course to have as many people as possible involved in the hand. If the person’s chips that has moved all in are equal to only a small portion of your chips, regardless of what you have you should call them, likewise everyone else at the table should too. If you are seated at a six person poker table this will force the player who is all in to have to beat not only one hand to double up, but instead five hands. Do you see where we are going with this?

Okay, so now we have six players involved in the hand, the person who is all in, yourself, and at the moment your four teammates. The reason I refer to them as teammates is because you need to help each other out so that you can all stay in the hand until the very end. How do you accomplish this? By not making any bets at all for the remainder of the hand. Even if you have a strong hand, say a pair of aces and make a big bet, other players may fold their hands. This may not sound bad, but considering the person who is all in could very likely make a straight beating your hand and doubling themselves up, you may very well have forced someone who would have made a flush and eliminated the person who is all in to fold their hand.

The only time you should ever even consider making a bet when an opponent is all in is if you have nuts after the river has been turned over (poker jargon for the best possible hand). But I must warn you, even in this situation it is considered by many to be very unsportsmanlike and foolish, so expect to catch some dirty looks if you are in a casino, or some off color comments if you are playing online.