Soft-Playing Revisited

In a previous column, I provided some examples of what might and might not be considered "soft-playing" in tournaments. My goal was to stimulate some discussion on an area of tournament poker that is often not defined, and definitely controversial. I received many e-mails from players with varying answers and scenarios.

One of the e-mails I received directed me to an online forum where a player had described a situation that had taken place in a small local tournament.

Here is how the player who posted the situation explained it:

"It's a no-limit hold'em tournament with more than 80 players. We are down to the last 10 and only nine get paid. I've taken a commanding lead with more than $60,000 in chips out of $160,000. There are no stacks even close to mine, and I'd say most players are in the $15,000 area. There is one short stack with about $5,500. I've been opening lots of pots and reraising to put others all in if I have some type of hand.

Over the course of the next round, I have four or five successful blind steals. I'm in the small blind and the short stack is in the big blind. He has $500 left after posting the blind. Everyone folds to me, I look at my cards, and throw them into the muck, even though I'm getting $5,000-to-$2,500 on a call.

As I'm tossing my cards, one of the players takes it upon himself to look at what I threw away – A-K suited. He immediately starts throwing a fit and accusing me of soft-playing."

At first glance, almost any poker player would think, "How could you throw away A-K suited for $2,500 and a chance to knock out the short stack?" This seems to be a clear-cut case of soft-playing, doesn't it? And what if I told you the small stack was a friend of the big stack? Would that make it easier to rule this as soft-playing? By definition, this is a clear-cut case of soft-playing – or is it?

At the time this hand took place, the player with the big stack was running over the table. He was stealing blinds left and right and basically controlling the tournament. The big stack has two options: (1) call the $2,500 (or, more realistically, put the big blind all in for his remaining $500) and be the favorite to knock out the big blind, or, (2) fold and allow the tournament to continue, playing one spot out of the money.

If the big stack called and knocked out the small stack, the remaining players would be in the money and play at the table would change. With all players in the money, there would be considerably more action and the big stack would lose some of the control he had on the table. If the big stack folded and allowed the tournament to continue one spot out of the money, play would continue to be tight, with all of the other players wanting to make it into the money. By folding, the big stack was giving himself a good chance of accumulating even more chips by stealing blinds and playing as the aggressive big stack.

The big stack explained his thinking:

"I still stand by what I did, and would play the same way even if I didn't know the short stack. Having the short stack in the game allowed me to run over the table, and as long as we were 10-handed, I believed I could get almost everyone to fold by putting them all in. It was working perfectly. I really wasn't trying to soft-play."

This player chose to maximize his chances of accumulating chips in the tournament by making a play that would allow the table to remain 10-handed. I do not believe this could be considered soft-playing. After all, that is the point of a tournament, to accumulate chips!