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Comment by ahtihn | Hacker News Reader

> Same reason you wouldn't go all in every time you get a poker hand that's "expected" to win. Because you'll (very probably) be bankrupt in a few hands.

You're calling an all-in 100% of the time in a cash game if your expected value is positive. If you don't, you can't afford to play at that table.

You're not going all-in with any hand expected to win because that's not how you maximize profit. It has nothing to do with the risk of going bankrupt. Because again, if that's a concern you shouldn't be sitting at the table.

Tournament poker is a bit different because there are certain points where you have positive chip EV and negative $ EV and the math changes.

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People are really zeroing in on the word 'bankrupt' here. The point was if you used that strategy, all in 100% of the time for positive EV, you will _probably_ go bankrupt even though the n=infinity limit of that strategy is positive.

The whole poker thing was merely an analogy in the first place.

Calling an all-in and going all-in are two totally different things, unless the all-in (that you'd be calling) is for an amount greater than you have. Otherwise, it's just "bet a lot, but you can keep trying if you lose". Going all in, on the other hand, is "bet it all, and if you lose you're done". The risk on the later is much greater. Any time there is no chance for recovery on failure, your risk analysis changes dramatically.

But in a cash game, if you're properly bankrolled (a common number people recommend is to have at least 40 buy-ins worth of cash set aside for the stakes you're playing), the one buy-in you lose if you lose an all-in is relatively small and you can just buy in again and keep playing. Going back to what OP said, if you shove every time you get aces you will profit over time as long as you have a properly managed bankroll, it's just not the most profitable way to play aces in most situations. It's different in tournaments because when you're late enough into a tournament, losing your stack actually does mean losing everything since you can't re-buy

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