Turbo Tournament Tips, Part II

Welcome to the second part of my Turbo Tournament Tips article. The following is a continuation of my article from the last issue, so if you haven’t read that, I suggest you do so before continuing with this article, although if you have not and do not plan to, these tips will still be useful.

When your opponents get short stacked and start going all-in, you must be able to figure out if they have a strong hand or if they have a wide range full of both strong and weak hands. If your opponent is tight, you can simply fold unless you also have a strong hand. If your opponent seems to be going all-in a lot, he most likely has a wide range, meaning you should call with hands that have his range in bad shape. While you can never know if he actually has a strong or weak hand unless he gives off an accurate physical tell, you can observe his pushing frequency and take note of the hands he shows down to determine about how wide his range is. You can then use this information to figure out how wide you should call.

A situation that frequently comes up is when a good, but not great, player pushes all-in from the small blind for around 15 big blinds. While most good players would balance their pushing range by pushing premium hands and marginally good hands, most mediocre players only push hands they think are too weak to raise small but too strong to fold. This means they will usually not have A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K, and A-Q in their range. This should lead you to happily call these large all-ins with hands such as 7-7 and A-10 offsuit, as these hands have this specific pushing range demolished. It is worth mentioning that if you call and your opponent shows up with a premium hand, take note and adjust accordingly against this specific player in the future.

I strongly suggest you download a poker equity calculator and learn how various hands do against various pushing ranges. Also, realize you must account for the prize structure. If you need to win 40 percent of the time to break even, according to the pot odds, you may need to win a much higher percentage of the time based on the prize structure. This goes back to a standard sit-n-go theory, called Independent Chip Modeling (ICM), for those looking for additional things to study. My fourth tip is to pay attention to your opponents and adjust accordingly.

I keep thinking back to one specific hand I brutally misplayed at my €5,300 final table. My cards were irrelevant, as I had air in the small blind and folded, but I should have waited around 15 seconds before folding. The blind levels were going up in 15 seconds and at the current level on the next hand, both players in the blinds would have 12 big blinds. If I waited 15 seconds, they would have eight big blinds instead. Seeing how I can profitably go all-in with many more hands when my opponents have eight big blinds compared to when they have 12 big blinds, I should have waited a few seconds, drastically increasing my equity on the next hand.

Some people think abusing the clock is somewhat unethical in poker but seeing how it is an important part of the game, I think it should be manipulated, within reason. If the blinds would be going up in a minute, I do not think it would make sense to blatantly stall. There is a fine line between what is ethical in these situations and I suppose each player has his own opinion. I think if it does not drastically slow down the game, there is nothing wrong with taking a little bit of extra time, especially if you rarely take a lot of time on any individual decision. I almost feel that because I take less than 10 seconds on every decision I make, I am somehow justified in taking 30 seconds here and there when I feel like it. Perhaps this logic is flawed. In pretty much every sporting event involving a clock, the teams that pay attention to it and use it intelligently do much better than teams that ignore it. That being said, if you find yourself taking a lot of time, you will play fewer hands than players at the other tables, destroying your win rate along with your chances of actually winning the tournament. My fifth tip is to pay attention to the clock and use it both intelligently and with integrity.

If you want to get good at any form of poker, you must put in your hours at the table while also spending time away from the table figuring out what to do in all of the standard situations. This concept can be taken to the extreme in short-stacked poker as you are usually dealing with a simple math problem before the flop. If you know the answers to all of the questions before you show up, you will find navigating these tournaments to be fairly simple and routine. You need to know which hands to push from each position with every stack size when your opponents fold to you. You need to know rough calling ranges, especially when dealing with aggressive pushers. While these two skills alone are quite broad, once you have mastered them, you will be able to focus on other things at the table, such as live tells.

If you have never played a short-stacked event, you will probably feel lost at the table. I suggest you study up on how to play both shorthanded and heads-up. If you frequently find yourself in situations you have never encountered, you will likely make costly mistakes. You simply must practice these situations ahead of time. Two easy ways to get practice are to play small-stakes, fast-structured online games or with your friends around the kitchen table. While practice will not make you perfect, it will at least give you some idea of what you will encounter and which skills you need to work on. My sixth and final tip is to study the forms of poker you are likely to encounter before actually sitting at the table. ♠

Jonathan Little, 2-time World Poker Tour champion has won more than $6 million in tournaments since 2006. He is sponsored by 3bet.com, Instapoker and BlueSharkOptics and teaches poker at FloatTheTurn.com and www.JonathanLittleSecrets.com. Follow him on Twitter @ JonathanLittle.