Mistakes Not Tournaments

My last article discussed the common mistake of trying to win pots rather than induce mistakes from your opponents. This time around, I’m going to apply that same line of thought to tournament poker and look at some of the problems that arise from trying to win tournaments rather than make profitable plays.

We all want to win every tournament we enter. The problem is that you can’t just decide to win and then do it. All that you can do is play each hand you are dealt to the best of your ability, in the way that you believe will maximize your real-money equity in the tournament.

Tournament poker can be deceptive. It may seem like it is about patience and survival, waiting around until you get the cards necessary to win a big pot, but poker is poker. At most stages of a tournament, your goal is the same as it is in a cash game: win every chip at your table. The game may play very differently because of the varying stack sizes and the presence of antes, but the objective is the same. If a play has a positive expectation, then you should take it. If it doesn’t, then you should fold.

People get into trouble when they start trying setting arbitrary goals for themselves. Aiming to survive the first day, make it to the money, maintain a stack of a certain size, or simply stay alive can only lead to mistakes.

Your goal should be to play each situation as it comes. When your stack is large relative to the blinds, you’ll have options available to you that you don’t when you’re short. If you lose a big pot, then those options will disappear and new options will become available. There are profitable opportunities to be found at any stack size, so rather than aiming to maintain a stack of a certain size, you should make the most of what you have and accept that there will be many changes over the course of the tournament.

Overvaluing Survival

The vast majority of tournaments you enter will be unwinnable no matter how well you play, simply because of some unforeseeable or unavoidable situation or series of situations that costs you your stack.

It can be tempting, after such an occurrence, to look back and say, “Everything was going so well. Why did I call that shove with A-K?” Probably you called because you believed it to be a profitable call, and probably you were right.

Don’t confuse this with results-oriented thinking; that’s a different sort of error. This has more to do with getting attached to your status at a particular moment in the tournament, usually a very favorable one for you, and assuming that you should be able to maintain it indefinitely. It’s not a matter of looking back on a hand and deciding it was a mistake because you lost. When thinking this way, you may recognize that a play is plus EV, but nevertheless believe that you were incorrect to gamble simply because the downside was loss of your beloved stack and possibly even your tournament life.

While it can be correct to value your survival in a tournament so highly that you pass up marginally plus EV spots, it’s easy to get carried away with this. If the pot is laying you 2-to-1, and you believe you have 35 percent equity, you might consider folding when you believe you have a large edge on the field. Folding in the same spot when you expect to have 40 percent equity is suicidal.

Even folding when you have 35 percent equity is questionable. This is generally correct only if you expect to have a large edge over your opponents going forward or if you are close to a significant pay jump.

You need to have a large edge going forward, not just when you entered the tournament. The average player still in after a few hours is tougher than the average player at the start of the tournament, so even if you had a big edge then, you may not any longer. At that point, it would not be correct for you to pass up any profitable spots.

It’s also generally the case that edges get smaller as the average stack size shrinks. Short stacks are the easiest to play correctly, so unless your opponents badly misunderstand proper play at this stage, it’s difficult for anyone to have a big edge when no one has more than 25 big blinds.

Lastly, almost all poker players overestimate their own skill. What this all boils down to is that even if you think you can afford to pass up a profitable spot in favor of survival, you probably can’t. Unless you are close to a significant pay jump, forget that you are in a tournament and just do your best to accumulate chips as opportunities present themselves.

Missing Steals

One consequence of thinking in terms of survival and maintaining a “healthy stack” is missing good steal opportunities. Many players look at stealing as a way of keeping their heads above water until good cards come along. These players tend to miss good stealing opportunities when they are satisfied with their stack sizes.

If it would be profitable to raise with 50 big blinds, then it’s almost certainly profitable to raise with 75 or 100. A big stack is not a license or excuse to wait around for good cards. If anything, it’s an opportunity to make more plays and take more risks.

The best players are always asking themselves, “How can I make the most with the two cards I have?” The size of their stacks may dictate the options available to them, but it never changes their desire to accumulate more chips.

Getting Desperate

The converse of missed steals are desperation plays. The same players who get complacent with a large stack tend to get desperate with a short stack. Rather than waiting for profitable spots, they believe they must gamble to get back a “healthy stack”.

This, too, is a consequence of trying to maintain a stack of a certain size. Your last chips are your most valuable, so if anything you should be more cautious when you are short-stacked.

Moreover, in any given hand that you play, your short stack actually gives you an advantage over opponents with larger stacks. They may choose to play more speculative hands against each other, which with their deeper stacks is often correct. Against you and your short stack, however, it is a mistake than you can exploit by shoving good hands aggressively into their wider ranges.

Personally, I think of the risks I take when I have a large stack as “stack-size semi-bluffs”. When I’m bluffing with a draw, I don’t want to be called, but I know that even if I am I still have a chance of drawing out. When I play a big pot, I don’t want to lose, but I know that even if I do I will have some very profitable opportunities as a short stack.

Adjusting Your Mindset

I don’t get complacent and I don’t get desperate. I just make the best plays that I can, let the chips fall where they may, and then re-assess my situation when the next hand is dealt.

The first habit you should break is comparing your stack to those of your friends or opponents. When you’re online, that means no checking the average stack size or where you are in the rankings. Until the end of the tournament, that information is meaningless and can only influence you for the worse.

You should also stop using the effect on your stack as a criterion in your decision-making. In other words, the fact that losing would “leave you crippled” isn’t a reason to fold if you believe a call would be profitable. Likewise, the fact that you would “still have a healthy stack if you’re wrong” isn’t a good reason to make a bad call. Evaluate these decisions on their own merits, and in the next hand play whatever stack you end up with.

Last and most importantly, try to be prepared mentally for the possibility of losing at any moment. Enter every tournament knowing that you’ll probably walk away empty-handed. No matter how big your stack gets or how few players remain, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. You’re rarely as close you think you are, and getting attached to the idea of success is setting yourself up for disappointment. If you play the best poker you can at every opportunity, the wins will follow. ♠

Andrew Brokos is a professional poker player, writer and coach. He’s a member of Poker Stars Team Online and blogs about poker strategy on ThinkingPoker.net. Andrew is also interested in education reform and founded an after-school debate program for urban youth.