Head Games: Knowing When to Shift Gears and Adjust Hand Ranges in Tournaments With Randal Flowers, Justin Young, and Brandon Shack-Harris

Craig Tapscott: Many players talk about shifting gears in multitable tournaments (MTTs). And the answers always are sometimes general and vague. Can you share what this term means to you, how and when you employ it, and at what stages of an event, etcetera?

Randal Flowers: Shifting gears means something different to everyone I think. Some players might do random erratic things that they don’t normally do claiming they are shifting gears. That is not shifting gears. The best definition I can give of shifting gears is constant awareness of your surroundings leading you to making better adjustments at all times. You employ shifting gears literally 100 percent of the time you play.
Some people would say it’s only when your table changes that you have a new environment and must switch gears. Either your table breaks, a player is added to your table, or you are added to another table. That is the most obvious change in information to lead you to consider if you should play differently to adjust. I do not believe these are the only times when you should adjust though. If you are in the small blind (SB) and the big blind (BB) is a very good aggressive player, then maybe you should try a different strategy besides raising the SB every time it folds to you. This is a strategy that you would do against most random/casual/amateur players, but won’t work as well against this opponent, so time for you to change gears. Maybe limp the SB with 100 percent of the hands you are going to play and limp/reraise your good hands. You might be worried about balance here, but just ask Daniel Negreanu and he’ll also confirm with you that balance is extremely overrated in tournaments. The key is exploitation.

I think the stages of a tournament to really change gears and exploit are on or near the money bubble. Conversely, maybe tighten up after the bubble bursts since everyone will be immediately content and not willing to make big folds now that they are finally in the money. At the final table bubble, you need to really know what the money means to the players you are playing against and proceed accordingly. If you know this young aggressive pro doesn’t care if he bubbles the final table and just wants first place, maybe it’s not such a good idea to run that great theoretical bluff that should work but won’t against this opponent. In general, if you are out of position versus an aggressive player you should tighten up. When you are in position and someone is playing passive or weak before you, then you turn up the aggression on them. You can’t balance, and exploit. You have to pick one, and I pick exploit.

Justin Young: The most common time to shift gears and become more aggressive is around the money bubble or a pay jump. Poker players will count on others playing tight in order to achieve a higher result.

Another time to change gears during a tournament is when antes are either large or small with relationship to the big blind. As an example if the blinds are 1,200-2,400 with a 400 ante, the ratio between the big blind and ante is 6-to-1, giving one more incentive to try and steal the pot. On the other side of the coin if we are playing 500-1,000 with a 100 ante, the ratio is 10-to-1 giving a smaller reward to what you are risking.

Many pros will play tight pre-ante as they see higher variance early without any real reward. I personally disagree with most of this. I believe the table flow is much more important to changing gears than the math and risk/reward. I will always play as aggressive as the table allows me. The style of play from the other eight people at the table will dictate what level I play on. It is highly important to pay attention to this dynamic. You can tell when others lose or gain confidence or interest. When you notice these changes, reacting properly becomes second nature and allows you to seamlessly go from a loose aggressive player to the tightest guy in the room.

Brandon Shack-Harris: I feel like the default example for a gear change strategy in no-limit MTTs would be the plan to either be fairly tight in early blind levels and establish a “solid” image, and then open up when the ante rounds begin, where you will be given more credit for having a strong holding. Or you can start off loose while the limits are small, to extrapolate information cheaper, and develop a reckless image that would hope to get you paid off later when you tighten up some and are looking to get value.

Overall, gear changing should be a never ending occurrence that has you fluctuating on appropriate blind/ante changes, pay jumps/ICM (Independent Chip Model), opponents’ stack sizes, bustouts, etcetera. A really great player is making lots of extra bets from the subtlest shifts in play that relate to every individual at the table, like a freakin’ ninja. Our opponents should be largely unaware, until we really want to announce ourselves.

Craig Tapscott: Let’s be specific and talk about how you shift and adjust and your particular hand ranges toward the late stages of an event according to the table and or particular players at the table and why?

Randal Flowers: During the late stages of an event, ICM is a huge part of every decision. You cannot count on your opponents to also know or even understand ICM. Part of your decision making late in a tournament will require realizing who understands ICM, then go from there with your choices.

I will give you an example. Recently I was deep in the Bigger $55 on a Sunday on PokerStars. At the beginning of the final table, the pay jumps aren’t significant to begin with, and I was around third in chips and knew this was the best time to be more aggressive while the shortest stacks folded most of their hands waiting to ladder up the payout.

Eventually we got to six-handed with me being a decent sized chipleader. A few of the guys started to inquire about a deal, so I knew immediately they would be folding even more now. So I stepped on the gas pedal raising and reraising a lot versus the one loose opener at the table. When we got down to four-handed, the guys asking about a chop had had enough. After saying nothing in chat (since you can click a box to confirm deals) I finally responded to a frustrated gentleman with a comment about how “I don’t give a hoot.” I switched gears into timing that comment when I was the button raising his BB. He reshoved a 20 BB stack that was worth a lot of money with J 9 and busted to my A-K suited. He might have just been tired, but from his chat comments he almost had started to tilt himself with me not commenting on there being a possible chop, so I thought I could annoy him and induce a shove.

Justin Young: Table dynamic is one of the best things about live poker. Eight other personalities are constantly cresting and falling over the course of a day, all while playing a game that has an element of luck. This allows for plays that in a vacuum look absurd, but given circumstances that you pay attention to, become the proper action.

On one end of the spectrum a table could be playing extremely tight and straightforward. This is one of the best feelings in tournament poker. This typically happens on a money bubble or even at the end of a night where people are just trying to make it to Day Two. Cards do not matter in these instances. I have increased my stack by 500 percent without a showdown on many money bubbles, knowing that the only time people will stand up to me is when they have a quality hand.

On the other end of the spectrum the table can be set up where making tight folds is the proper strategy. The more you pay attention to the table dynamic the easier it is to pigeonhole everyone’s opening ranges at each position.

Brandon Shack-Harris: Adjusting hand ranges can often be a delicate and tricky situation depending on what type of tournament you’re playing. Since I play predominately mixed games, opening up a huge range isn’t usually a luxury that is allotted to me, since your average stack late in a MTT is around 9-12 big bets (usually about 2.5 hands that see a showdown), you really need to be selective of the hands you play, and how you intend to proceed with them.

That said, stealing the antes usually gets you a full big blind, and that is a lot of value. So being in a position to complete every highest door card in stud, complete every hand with the high door blocker under, complete every second high door through a weak high door (x-x-K through weak x-x-A), reraise every high door completer when we have their blocker ((x-x) K completes, we raise (K-10) 9 to resteal), and so on, is an amazing spot.

In games like stud eight-or-better, that are split-pot games, we often need something that can really develop strong showdown value, because hands showdown with a pretty high frequency. In this case changing gears in an aggressive way may be just having the luxury to raise a completer a little lighter in an attempt to isolate, since cold calling a complete and a raise on third street now represents a chunk of the average opponent’s stack.

In pot-limit Omaha, when we get shorthanded against smaller stacks in big money jumps, we just get to open whatever we want. We can defend in position because people are over-folding preflop and post, and equities run so close.

It is important to be mindful of the downshift lever in your game if people aren’t having any more of your shenanigans. And be willing to explore letting go of any ego, tighten back up, and allow your opponents to own themselves. ♠

Randal Flowers is the youngest two-time World Poker Tour winner ever. He currently resides in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico playing online when he is not traveling the live circuit for tournaments.

Justin Young is a former mechanical engineer who quit his job to play poker full time in 2006. Though mainly a cash game player, Justin has career cashes that exceed $3.4 million including two World Poker Tour final tables.

Brandon “Oscillator” Shack-Harris resides in Chicago, Illinois. He is a high-limit mixed games player, and is currently the front runner for 2014 WSOP Player of the Year. Shack-Harris won the $1,000 pot-limit Omaha bracelet at the 2014 WSOP.