Head Games: Stack Awareness. Always Know the Size of Your Stack and Your Opponents During Tournament Play

Craig Tapscott: When it comes to playing a big stack, what kinds of things do you survey about the other stacks at the table when it comes to opening pots?

Chris Moorman: An important thing to consider when opening as a big stack at the final table is where the other big stacks are positioned. For example, if the only other big stack is in the small blind it is much more favorable to open wider in this spot than when the same stack is on the button and will have position for the rest of the hand. The smaller stacks are generally going to be reluctant to play back at you as wide, therefore you will have a much easier time playing against them as they are will be forced to play tighter ranges if they are ICM (Independent Chip Model) aware.

Also, I will be looking at how many people have re-shove stacks behind me and how many people are behind them. If you are in the cutoff and the blinds and button have re-shove stacks, then you are very limited to what hands you can open profitably unless there are extreme ICM implications for these stacks. However, if you are under the gun and those same three stacks are in the next seats, you are much more protected from them jamming on you wide because they will have to worry about the rest of the table behind them as well as your ‘stronger’ opening range.

Another very important thing to consider is who is in the big blind and how often they are defending and how tough/sticky are they post-flop. If they are stubborn, you will be looking to open a tighter more solid range of hands. It is also okay to open with some suited connectors to give you some board coverage rather than blocker type raises with weak A-x hands that flop poorly.

Chris Wallace: I think there are two really important things to remember when playing a big stack in a tournament. You have to go from the gas to the brakes very quickly, and you must pay attention to the other stacks at the table and think ahead.

Going from the gas to the brakes means that you do not lose big pots with weak hands. It is easy sometimes to get caught up in a bad spot because you were raising a weak hand and didn’t get away from it at the right time. If you raise 7 5 from middle position because you are running over the table, and the big blind makes a small reraise, you should usually call. Then when the flop comes seven-high, you should usually call another bet or perhaps even raise.

Now you have committed at least ten big blinds or more and the player in the big blind may only have eight big blinds left if you call the flop bet. When the turn is an offsuit jack and he goes all in, you may be committed to calling him since the pot is so big and end up paying off an overpair or ace-jack for nearly twenty big blinds when you never really had a hand. There is no easy solution to this problem, though raising the flop and folding to an all-in reraise may have saved you some money in many cases.

Thinking ahead about stack sizes usually involves players who are likely to go all-in over the top of your raise. If there are multiple players with stacks between 12 and 22 big blinds behind you, raising light can just mean that you are throwing away a couple big blinds and feeding chips to players to your left.

If the big blind has 14 big blinds, and is an aggressive player who understands re-steals and fold equity, raising a hand like A-10 can be very profitable because you will be ahead of his re-steal range. When the big blind is a passive player who does not play well and will simply call your raise to see a flop, weaker hands with speculative value can be very profitable, and raising small suited connectors and small suited aces can become much more profitable.

Brian Hastings: With a big stack, the most important thing to be aware of regarding stacks behind is if anyone covers you, in which case you must adjust your play and usually play considerably tighter, unless the bigger stacks are not exploiting their chip advantage. It’s not ideal to tangle with other big stacks, especially those which cover yours. Risking a large part of a big stack on any one hand is usually very bad, unless one has a large equity edge in the spot. Otherwise, the fact that the marginal value of the chips one loses is greater than that of the chips one gains makes large confrontations minus expected value (-EV) in tournament play.

The second most important thing to be aware of is short stacks behind, since they can simply re-shove and take away our big stack advantage. With a bunch of short stacks behind, a big stack must open considerably tighter. The exception is on money bubbles, during which short stacks are handcuffed and can only re-shove very tight ranges (or at least should only be). With short stacks behind, I’m far less likely to open hands like small pairs and suited connectors since they don’t block any hands that short stacks will want to shove. I’d much rather open K-J offsuit or A-8 offsuit than 10-9 suited or 4-4 with mainly short stacks behind me. The converse is true with mostly medium to large stacks behind. I can’t defend K-J offsuit or A-8 offsuit vs. a three-bet against a big stack (at least with a call, four-bet bluffing is an option), but with 10-9 suited or 4-4, I can call and proceed on favorable flops.

Craig Tapscott: You are at the final table with a short stack. There is one other stack shorter than yours. What is your game plan besides just waiting for a monster hand?

Chris Moorman: I’m paying close attention to how often people are opening when it folds to them so I can exploit the people opening very wide by re-shoving weaker hands on them. Often you can have fold equity with as few as 10 big blinds on min-raises these days because people are reluctant to double you up when you are on their left.

When re-shoving wider, it is a lot more desirable to have as few people behind you to act as possible, as this will decrease the chances of you running into a big hand behind. Re-shoves are extremely profitable when implemented correctly and can add a huge percentage of chips to your stack. It’s important to choose hands that have decent equity when called, such as an ace or a suited connector and Broadway-type hands. It is much harder to chip up by raising marginal hands from a short stack than a few years ago, mainly because people are defending much wider now in the blinds. It can be tough to barrel them off of their hands when you have a shorter stack than them.

Chris Wallace: The common mistakes that I see in this situation are giving up or punting, as we often call it, or blinding your stack into nothing. Wait for a spot and take it, but look damn hard for that spot and don’t miss an opportunity. Thinking in terms of generalizations is bad in any spot in a poker tournament, especially when you are short stacked.

‘Wait and pick your spot and not panic.’ That sounds like good advice, but it will cause most people to miss good opportunities to steal the blinds. Check out a push/fold chart, learn when to shove it all-in and steal those blinds, because you want to have some chips when you get your double up and if you wait too long the double up won’t do you much good.

You need to get some chips and can’t survive many more rounds. That also sounds like good advice, but if you get your chips at the wrong time, you can be giving up a tremendous amount of value because of ICM considerations.

Consider every hand, every spot, every situation, and get the chips in when the spot is right. Things to think about include who is in the pot already and their hand range, who may enter the pot after you and what their hand range will be, the likelihood that you will move up in the money if you fold, and what a double up or stealing the blinds will actually do for you in terms of chip position.

I find it often helps to make my decision and then critique it in my own head. How would I assess this decision if one of my students told me they made it this way? That helps you step back and see if you are missing anything important. Final tables are where you make most of your money and the decisions are huge, so it’s important to get it right.

Brian Hastings: Most of my game plan is waiting for a monster hand in that circumstance, but if I have a re-shove stack and find a good spot (say A-10 suited vs. a button raise 18 big blinds deep) with a good amount of fold equity, I’m not afraid to go for it.

I’m also not afraid to mix in some limping and flat calling from time to time. I’ve been experimenting with limping under the gun (UTG) and UTG+1 some with a shorter stack. I think I like it. And given the standard raise sizes made in MTTs and the resulting pot odds the big blind is given facing a raise closing the action, I’m still going to be defending my big blind quite a bit even with a very short stack.

Other than that, it really is as simple as playing tight and trying to ensure not to be at risk before the shortest stack is. Pay jumps at final tables are large, and putting oneself at risk in the wrong spots will be really detrimental to a tournament player’s bottom line over time. ♠

Chris Moorman won the 2014 WPT LA Classic. He is the all-time leader with career online poker tournament earnings of more than $11.8 million. He also has more than $4 million in live cashes. Chris is the author of popular strategy book, “Moorman’s Book of Poker.”

Chris “Fox” Wallace is a professional player and poker coach. You can find his blog at foxpoker.com and his poker training videos at IveyLeague.com. He also works as an ambassador for Blue Shark Optics, and endorses truBrain, a supplement that is perfect for poker players. Wallace won a WSOP bracelet in 2014.

Brian Hastings has been making a living playing poker since the age of 16. He is a graduate of Cornell University with a degree in economics.  Hastings is best known for his $4.18 million win against Isildur1 on Full Tilt Poker in 2009, the largest single day win in the history of online poker.