Short Stack Preflop Play

Today, I want to look at a situation that comes up often in tournaments; you get down to 20 big blinds or so. This can happen in many ways and happens to everyone regularly. The important thing is to not worry about how you got here, but rather figure out what to do. You really don’t want to get down to the ten big blind level, either through blinding off, the limits going up, or some combination of both. At that point, even if you get a full double up, you are just back to the point you were at before. So that asks the question, what can you do when you have 20 big blinds to try and increase your stack or stay ahead of the blind increases?

I like to look for opportunities to make an all-in move as a three-bet over a late position raiser. Let’s look at an example. We can be the button with 20 big blinds. The person on our right opens to 2.5 big blinds, which is a common amount these days. If we move all in from the button and both the blinds fold, this puts the opener in a tough spot.

From the opener’s point of view, the raise is 17.5 big blinds. The pot will be 25 big blinds. There are usually about 2.5 big blinds between the blinds and antes, the 2.5 big blinds from the original raise, and the 20 big blinds from the all-in raise. The opener will have to put in 17.5 out of 42.5 big blinds to call, or just over 41 percent of the pot. If the opener had a starting stack that was 50 big blinds or less, calling here and losing really hurts their tournament position. As a result, this is a spot that needs a pretty strong hand to call, maybe nines or better or A-K and A-Q. That is five percent of the starting hands. If the opener has a normal opening range, say 30 percent of the hands, that means they will be folding 5/6ths of the time.

So, let’s look at the math from our point of view. For now, we will say the blinds fold and come back to them later. This is another case of having two ways to win. We can win this pot preflop and we can win this pot at showdown. So we need to calculate the equity from each situation and then add them together to see what our final outcome is. In this case, if we win preflop, we get a total of 25 big blinds back. If we are estimating that our opponent is folding 5/6ths of the time, then we need to multiply .8333 times the 25 big blinds we expect to end up with. This means we get 20.8 big blinds in equity from the folds.

Now we need to look at how often we win when we are called. To do this, you need to use a tool like PokerStove or another hand equity calculator. We also need to know how often we are raising in this spot to put in our hand strength. I think raising with half the hands is reasonable here. So if we look at our equity playing 50 percent of the hands against the 5 percent of the hands we think our opponent is playing, we will win about 30 percent of the time. To calculate our equity from this result, we need to multiply the .30 that we win times the 42.5 big blinds that are in the pot. This means we have 12.75 big blinds in equity in this pot when we are called. Remember that we only play this pot 1/6th of the time. So we need to multiply .16666 times 12.75 big blinds. This is 2.12 big blinds in equity. When we add it to the 20.8 big blinds from the folds, we get a total of 22.9 big blinds in equity.

Now we still need to consider the blinds. Each of the blinds should be calling with five percent or less of the hands. It is reasonable for them only to be playing jacks or better and A-K, which is three percent of the hands. But to have a conservative estimate, we can say they both fold 90 percent of the time. We will also still win the pot 30 percent of the time we are called. So we can use 93 percent of our previous equity to account for the blinds. When you multiply .93 times the 22.9 big blinds, you get a total value of 21.3 big blinds for our equity from moving all in at this point.

Moving all in here is a plus expected value (EV) bet while using many conservative estimates. There are factors that can make it even better. If we are a blind, there are fewer players who can call us, or if the opener is playing even more hands, then they will fold more often. The downside to this type of play is that you have to go home sometimes. But, you are in a precarious position, and when you survive, you have a much stronger position to play from, either having 25 big blinds or in the best cases, over 40 big blinds. ♠

Rep Porter is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner and is the lead instructor at ThePokerAcademy.com, whose mission is to help poker players achieve better results through better decisions and that is done by teaching poker in a way that makes learning easy and enjoyable with high quality courses taught by professional players.

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