Head Games: Powerful Strategies for Short-Stack Tournament Play

The Pros: Matt Matros, Michael Benvenuti, and Blair Hinkle
Craig Tapscott: Please share some of the key strategy tips that you would give a tournament player in regard to mastering a short stack.
Matt Matros: First, learn when you have fold equity and when you don’t. For those who don’t know, “fold equity” is the term for the value in getting all of your opponents to fold and picking up the pot uncontested. With certain stack sizes (say, four big blinds or smaller), your fold equity is effectively zero, as most opponents will call any all-in bet preflop if they’re getting 2-1 or better (and they’re usually right to do so). The idea, then, is to act before you find yourself with such a desperately short stack. You want to be moving in while you still have fold equity. This same logic applies to reraises. You can reraise with a wider range when you have fold equity, so if someone else opens, you can reraise all in with more hands if you have 15 big blinds than if you have 10 big blinds. With 15 big blinds, you generally have enough chips to get the initial raiser to fold his weaker hands. With only 10 big blinds in your stack, the raiser will probably be pot-committed and call with his entire range. Learning these nuances of different stack sizes is vital to becoming a strong short-stack player, and it all starts with understanding the concept of fold equity.
Michael Benvenuti: One of the biggest mistakes that amateurs make when playing a short stack is being too eager to see flops before committing their stack. When playing a short stack (around 15-25 big blinds), you should be looking for spots to reshove all in rather than calling and seeing a flop. The only exception to this, I believe, is if you are playing a very weak player and have a very strong hand, like A-A or K-K, and your call won’t make your hand obvious, like it would against a competent player. In general, however, you should just be shoving all in over a raise with all hands that you intend to play. When your stack size decreases to around 10 big blinds or less, you should be looking to open-shove all in rather than shove over an opener, unless you have a strong hand, of course. With this stack size, you lose most of your fold equity when someone opens and you shove, because he will be getting the right price to call you with most of the hands he opens with. But you still have plenty of fold equity on your open-shoves. Therefore, you should be stealing the blinds often from late position by open-shoving all in; that way, you can build your stack up to a point where you have fold equity to shove over an open again.
Blair Hinkle: The first tip that I would give would be to know your table image. If you were playing lots of pots or maybe showed down a few ill-timed bluffs, the other players at the table will most likely give your all-in bet less credit, so you need to be a little more patient with reshoving after a player has opened the pot. On the other hand, if you played solid and just got coolered, or the blinds caught up to your stack, you can most likely get away with reshoving with a weaker hand, because players will give you credit after seeing you play so patiently. Another tip is that many players think it looks strong to open from early position. I actually prefer to shove over players with this mindset, since they think their open-raise looks strong because it was made from early position; therefore, they give my hand more credit and will often fold hands that are fairly strong. Lastly, don’t get frustrated if you are short-stacked and card-dead, and there hasn’t been a good spot to reshove. Some players will go on tilt and convince themselves that they should reshove over a late-position raiser, even though that player might have folded for the last half-hour. There is nothing wrong with folding for a few orbits if the right situation doesn’t arise.  
Craig Tapscott: What factors do you take into consideration in regard to the hand range with which you will shove all in?
Matt Matros: My stack size, the stack sizes of the other players in the hand, the size of the antes (if there are any), the tightness of the other players in the hand, the number of other players in the hand, the action in front of me, and my image. Certain ranges are relatively automatic to pick. With big antes, if everyone folds to me in the small blind and I have seven big blinds or less, it’s essentially unexploitable to move in with any two cards. Other situations are far more complicated. If everyone folds to me in the hijack position with 11 big blinds, I ask myself, how tight are the players behind me? How big are their stacks (players with large stacks are more likely to call than players who just barely have me covered)? Is there an ante, and if so, is it a whopping one-third of a small blind or only a tenth of a small blind? How much stealing have I been doing? There is more analysis if someone has raised in front of me. Then, I consider where the raise came from (an under-the-gun raise is obviously far stronger than a button raise), the size of the raise, and the profile of the raiser. Some players love to open pots, but hate to call without a very strong hand. Some players are very tight with their opening raises, but don’t ever fold once they have put money in the pot. And some players are loose at all times. The more I know about my opponents’ tendencies, the better decision I can make.
Michael Benvenuti: The most important factors in determining a range of hands with which to shove all in are stack sizes, position, and the opponent’s tendencies and hand range. If I’m in one of the blinds with a stack of around 15-25 big blinds and a loose-aggressive opponent with a decent-sized stack opens from late position, I’m likely to shove a wide range consisting of all pairs, some decent suited connectors, and most Broadway cards. My range is wide in this spot because my opponent is opening a wide range, and I can use my fold equity to steal the chips in the pot a high percentage of the time without a showdown. If my opponent was tight, on a short stack, or had opened from early position, I would need a much stronger range to shove, because I would expect to get called more often. When playing a stack of around 10 big blinds, I will be open-shoving every hand that I choose to play, and my position at the table is the biggest factor in determining how tight or loose my range will be. For instance, if I am under the gun, I will be shoving a tight range of medium and high pairs, and a few good high-card hands, like A-K and A-Q; whereas, in the small blind, I will be shoving with any two cards if the player in the big blind is tight.
Blair Hinkle: The most important factors I consider would have to be my stack size and the playing styles of all of the players at the table. If I have a short enough stack that I will be open-shoving, I need to figure out who has been playing tight and who likes to gamble. Also, a fellow short stack is better to shove on than a big stack. Often, a big stack will be willing to gamble because he might not consider my stack a threat; therefore, I will tighten up my shove range against him. For reshoving, I find it best to take advantage of a bigger stack that is trying to run the table. I will often have a pretty loose range for the first couple of reshoves, because I have identified this player as opening some pretty bad hands with which he can’t call a shove. Usually, this will cause him some frustration, so after a few reshoves, I tend to tighten up my range, as I expect him to look me up with whatever hand he has soon enough. ♠