When I Was A Donk – Christopher Vitch

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.

Poker pro Christopher Vitch is a mixed-games specialist from Phoenix, Arizona who has shined at the World Series of Poker during the last few years. The 34-year-old made his first WSOP final table in 2008, and had several close calls in the years that followed.

In 2015, he finished runner-up in a $1,500 stud eight-or-better event for $111,860. He followed that up in 2016 with a third-place showing in a $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. event for another $92,374, before finally winning his first bracelet in the $2,500 mixed triple draw event for $136,854. This summer, Vitch won his second bracelet, taking down the $10,000 stud eight-or-better event for $320,103.

Here, Vitch talks about short-stacked tournament play.

I think my biggest problem early on was that I was very inexperienced with tournament play. I mostly played cash games, so I just wasn’t used to certain situations that come up in tournaments.

In tournaments, especially limit mixed-game tournaments, it’s not uncommon to find yourself with a stack of something like three or four big bets. But in a cash game, that’s such an unfamiliar feeling because the blinds don’t go up, and you can always rebuy. There’s really no reason to play short-stacked in a cash game, so you never get that practice.

Nobody wants to admit it, but I’ve seen it happen many times where a player will get down to those last few bets, find a marginal hand, and then fire it off hoping to get lucky. But with three big bets, there’s still a lot of damage you can do with your stack.

If you are playing a flop game, you have enough chips to see the flop and possibly fold if it’s really terrible. Or in a stud game, if they catch a perfect card, you now have room to fold and find a better spot. Or in a split-pot game, you can use those last few bets to find spots to chop your way out of a short stack.

I think the turning point for me was when I was able to make a final table or even win a tournament after being down to just a few big bets. Once you see that happen, those chips become a lot more valuable in your mind and you are less likely to just rip them in there and hope for the best. If you can find a way to just… not give up, you’d be surprised how often you can come back from a short stack, or at least ladder up a few pay jumps at the final table. ♠