Playing An Extremely Short Stack: Part I

One of the most important skills a tournament player can develop is the ability to make the correct play with an extremely short stack. Many of these decisions turn out to be more mathematical than decisions involving deep stacks. In this column, we will examine a very simple situation, and in future columns use it as the basis for discussing more complicated ones.

The situation: On the previous hand you were under the gun and lost nearly all of your chips. (It doesn’t matter how. You may have had the best hand and gotten unlucky. You may have gotten in with the worst of it. You may have been caught bluffing. That is now ancient history.) There is a 100 ante and the blinds are 400-800. You are now in the big blind, and have very few chips left after posting your 800 big blind. Worse yet, a sound player raised to 2400 from under the gun. Everyone else folds, but your hand is the lowly 7 2. You don’t have enough to reraise, so your options are to call or to fold. What should you do?

The UTG raiser probably has a pretty good hand. Let’s estimate his range as being the top 8 percent. This means pairs 8-8 or better, A-T suited, K-T suited, and Q-J suited or better. A-J offsuit or better. Versus this range you should win a little less than 25 percent of the time, but for purposes of approximation, let’s say you’ll win one-quarter of the time.

We have specified that you don’t have enough to reraise, so you have less than 1700. Since you are not all-in, you must have at least 100. There is going to be a point below which your equity is greater if you call and above which it is greater if you fold. What is that point? (You must determine when the amount you will average by calling is greater than the amount you would be left with if you folded.) If your opponent had just called, the pot would be 900 from the antes, 1200 from the blinds, and 800 from his call. This totals 2900. Since you don’t have the full amount of his raise, a call would add twice that amount to the pot. For example, if you have 1000 left, a call would create a pot of 4900. You will win about a quarter of the time, so a call is worth 25 percent of 4900 or a little over 1200. If you folded, you would have had only 1000 left. Thus ,by calling, your equity increases from 1000 to 1200.

Let’s try the same calculation assuming you have exactly 1600, enough to call the full raise. Now the pot is 2900 plus 3200, which equals 6100. One quarter of 6100 is slightly over 1500. But you could have had 1600 by folding, therefore with 1600 (or more) remaining, you should fold. Either by formula or trial and error, you will find that 1400 is approximately the breakeven point. With more you should fold and with less you should call. Yet this is a very easy spot to go wrong. Psychologically you feel defeated by your big loss on the previous hand. 7-2 offsuit is a pathetically weak hand, especially against a raiser who rates to have something much stronger than that. It is clearly right to call with 800 left, yet an evil imp in the back of your brain may be urging you to fold and hope the next hand is better. I personally hate the thought of reading an online write up that states Steve Zee was eliminated by making an all-in call with 7-2 offsuit.

I will look at some more short stack situations in future columns. As I write this we are about three weeks into the WSOP. Many players have turned in great performances. Let me join the line of those congratulating Phil Helmuth on winning number 12, Phil Ivey on dominating tournament after tournament to reach five final tables already, and Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, who topped a large field to become first Shulman to win a bracelet this year. ♠

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. 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.