The Secret to Winning Poker Tournaments

As you probably already know, Harrah’s created a $1 million freeroll for 100 players who had qualified from their WSOP Circuit events. I needed a few more points to be sure of qualifying, so I went to New Orleans, my last chance before the World Series of Poker. These Circuit events run smoothly, the $10,000 events are televised, and there is the opportunity to qualify for the freeroll. (By the time that you read this, it will be over, and I hope that you’ll see my name on the winner’s list.) This is the first year of the freeroll, and I would be very surprised if next year’s Circuit events don’t draw more players. This is a great opportunity for the players. It is also a great opportunity for Harrah’s to create a lot of excitement in the poker community as players compete for the available spots.

I have often emphasized the fact that tournament success requires mastery of some skills that aren’t particularly important in cash games. The most important of these is the ability to play with and against short stacks. This means making the correct decisions about when it is appropriate to go all in before the flop and when it is appropriate to call someone who has already moved in. Both Dan Harrington’s Tournament Poker series and the Kill Phil/Kill Everyone series give excellent overviews of this difficult subject.

As an illustration of the importance of these decisions, consider the main event of last year’s WSOP. This event almost definitely has the slowest structure and most play of any major tournament. You might think that all-in decisions are less of a factor there than they are in tournaments with faster structures. Yet, at last year’s final table, almost every knockout occurred in a hand in which one of the players was all in preflop. None of the tactics that make cash-game players rich was really a factor; no great laydowns on the river, no semibluffs on the flop, no clever value-bets to eke out a little extra. Everything revolved around preflop shoves.

I want to discuss a situation that occurred in one of the small buy-in tournaments in New Orleans that involves one of these preflop shove decisions. All players had started with 10,000 in chips, and after a few hours, we were playing with a 100 ante and blinds of 400-800. A hand came up in which the under-the-gun player folded, and the next player raised. He was reraised all in by an opponent with fewer chips than he had. He had aces and his opponent had 7-6 suited. Of course, the 7-6 prevailed. Our hero was now under the gun with 4,000 left. He also was steaming. While the dealer was pulling in the antes, he shoved his last 4,000 into the pot blind. Everyone folded around to the big blind, who had been doing well, and now had probably 20,000. He had 10-8 offsuit. What do you think he should do? Do you think this is a trivial decision or one that will create a big change in equity?
He thought about it briefly. Then, he folded his 10-8 faceup. I remember thinking that it was probably a call, and that if I had time, I’d try to look at the math. I have had time, and here are the results of my analysis: 10-8 offsuit wins 49.7 percent of the time against a random hand. It loses 50.3 percent of the time. This means that a call would have netted a gain of 6,100 (900 in antes, 1,200 from the blinds, and 4,000 from the shove) when it won. It would lose 3,200 (the completion from the big blind) when it lost. It is already clear that it is correct to call, and that there is a big difference in equity. Calling gains 1,422 in equity! Remember that this is nearly 15 percent of a starting stack, at a fairly early stage of the tournament. Even though it doesn’t seem like an important decision, the big blind’s fold was a horrendous blunder.

My advice to you is to take some time to see how hands and ranges match up, using the CardPlayer.com odds calculator or any of the others that are available online. Don’t make this kind of mistake, especially when you are far from the money. When there is a long way to go before the bubble, you want to make plays that increase your equity. Calling here would have resulted in a big increase in equity for the big blind. ♠

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City