Playing an Extremely Short Stack – Part VII

This column will focus on the relationship between stack size and bubble play. I will assume that you are in a tournament with a fairly normal structure. This means that approximately 10 percent of the players will make the money. The bubble occurs at the point when the next player eliminated gets nothing, but the player after him receives a minimum payout. This minimum payout is often somewhere close to twice the entry fee into the tournament. There is a significant cash difference for those who survive the bubble. After the bubble bursts, payouts increase slowly. Each pay jump is worth only slightly more than the last one. Only the struggle for one of the final few spots will produce jumps in payout as large as the initial money bubble. (Normally that much additional cash for surviving one more spot won’t occur again until late in the tournament.) This means that from a financial or equity point of view it is very important not to get knocked out at or very near the bubble.

Let’s us examine five representative stack sizes, and see how they influence your strategy.

A very large stack – you are one of the tournament leaders at this stage.

A large stack – you are in the top 20 percent of the remaining players.

A medium or average stack – you are right in the middle of the pack. Normally this means your stack is somewhere close to 10 times your original buy-in.

You have a short stack – you are well below average, but still have some fold equity. Fold equity is created by going all-in and winning an uncontested pot. You probably have enough to fold into the money if you chose to do so.

You have an extremely short stack – If your stack becomes extremely short, you have little or no fold equity. This means you will need to beat one or more opponents often enough to have plus equity in these contended pots. You should have made every reasonable effort to go all-in while you still have fold equity.

With a very large stack and often with just a large stack, you can justifiably intimidate the other players, especially if they have smaller stacks than yours. It is a disaster to for anyone to lose an all-in pot to you, since they will be knocked out. This allows you to “play chicken” with any smaller stack. The first player to go all-in or become pot committed should usually be allowed to win an uncontested pot. Not only is it a disaster for him to get all-in with the worst hand. It will be a major loss of money equity if gets all-in with a coin flip or even as a small favorite.

With a medium stack, you are in an awkward position. You can still push around smaller stacks, but big stacks can push you around. Obviously, you don’t want to get knocked out just short of the money, but you might easily become a contender for a high finish if you win a few pots soon. So even though your stack is large enough to get into the money by folding every hand, you must take a few chances in hopes of winning the tournament. I’d advise you to follow a normal, tight cash game style strategy.

With a short stack, you can probably fold your way into the money, but it is much harder to become a contender to win the tournament. Therefore play a super-tight strategy until you reach the money. Since you still have some fold equity, you might try to steal in late position or from the blinds. Just keep in mind that this is an extremely dangerous idea. A loss will lead to your being knocked out just before the bubble.

With an extremely short stack, you no longer have fold equity. If the bubble has not been reached yet, there is a good chance that you won’t be able to get into the money by folding every hand. The previous column stated that your situation is already desperate and, it becomes correct to play increasingly weak hands. There is an old proverb which states that “desperate times call for desperate measures.” It is also sometimes phrased as “desperate men do desperate things.” The point is that you are forced to take some low percentage chances to avoid the terrible fate of blinding and anteing yourself out of the tournament before the money. Even after the money is reached, you are still in bad shape. In simple mathematical terms, it is better to play a 4,000 chip pot that you have only a 30 percent chance to win (your equity is 1,200) than to wait and later play a 1,000 chip pot that you will win 80 percent of the time (your equity is 800).

One of the most important skills a tournament player can develop is the ability to make the correct decisions with and against short and extremely short stacks. The reason this skill is important for tournament players, and relatively unimportant for cash game players, is because short stack situations occur very frequently in the crucial stages of tournaments, starting just before the money and continuing to the end of the final table. Thus, they have a huge impact on your tournament results. In cash games these decisions are less frequent, since players add chips, and less important, since they represent only a small percentage of your result. If you are a regular tournament player, either live or online, I recommend that you spend a lot of time thinking about these decisions. Deal out some sample hands, and try to determine what works. Talk to successful tournament players and get their ideas. ♠

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.