Four Tournament Truisms That Aren’t Always True

Poker truisms are a dime a dozen: With pocket aces, you’ll either win a small pot or lose a big one. Never go broke in a limped pot. Play the player, not the cards.
Over time, lines like these have become embedded in poker culture as conventional wisdom. The problem is that many of them are plainly false, not true in all situations, or too simple to convey anything insightful. As a result, they spread misinformation and flawed strategies.
Well, folks, the jig is up—we’re out to debunk some of the most trumped up truisms in tournament poker. If you fear that you have been misled by age-old tournament ‘wisdom’, we’re here to set the strategy straight.
1. Never Call A Raise-First-In With Less Than 11 Big Blinds
Let’s call this the 11 Big Blind (BB) Rule. There is a salient point being made here. When we don’t have many chips, we usually want to avoid flatting versus an open-raise from another player. This is because we are sacrificing a large percentage of our overall stack—around 20 percent with ~10bb—just to see a flop. Why risk being folded off our equity post-flop when we can avoid this situation entirely by either folding or jamming pre-flop?
While this is all reasonable, there is an exception to the 11bb Rule—namely, when you’re seated in the big blind. In tournaments, your price to call from this position can be extremely good since opening sizes are typically smaller in MTTs (generally between 2–2.5x), coupled with antes being in play (equating to around 1bb at a 9-handed table). For example, facing a 2.1x raise with no callers at a 9-handed table with antes, the Big Blind risks 1.1bb to win 4.6bb. At this price, we need to have at least 23.9 percent equity versus our opponent’s range to profitably call. (7-2 offsuit has 31 percent equity against A-K suited, for reference.) With such great pot odds, we can justify calling with hands that are too weak to shove but too strong to fold.
At this point, I expect people to come at me with the usual counter-argument: you won’t realize enough of your equity post-flop when you’re out-of-position. While we definitely will be folding on many flops, the times we don’t fold will be enough to make a call +EV. What is more, post-flop play is very simple when we’re short-stacked; generally, if we catch a piece of the board, the money will be going in. By contrast, with a deeper stack we are often bluffed off the best hand after multiple streets of pressure.
2. There’s No Getting Away From It With A Short-Stack
In tournaments, coolers will happen fairly often. When stack sizes are short the chips are likely to go in the middle, so it’s somewhat true: there are times when there’s simply no getting away from your hand. When we get dealt K-K with 15 big blinds and run into A-A, it is fair to say that we should never be folding. There was no getting away from it.
But the problem with this truism is that it is used too liberally, to describe too many hands, and it’s often used as an excuse for a misstep a player has made. With bubble play and pay jumps, there are occasions in tournaments when you in fact can and should get away from a hand, even if it’s a huge one. For example, if we’re on the stone bubble and have a number of players covered, risking our tournament life should seldom be done. If we’re dealt A-K, for instance, with 15bb and face a raise and jam from players in front that cover us, ICM calculations tell us that we should definitely be folding with other short-stacks still in the field. In this spot the correct play is to get away from it.
3. Only Big Stacks Can Be The Bullies
All players aspire to be the ‘big-stack bully’ at their table. With more chips to work with, it is true that a player can exploitatively put more pressure on the shorter stacks around them. Clearly, the notion of the big-stack bully implies that short-stacks must submit to the pressure and be confined to their push/fold ranges, right?
Wrong. As he looks to exploit the tighter ranges of short-stacked players, the table bully very often opens himself up to exploitation by widening his own range. This presents the shorter-stacks with a chance to be exploitatively aggressive, particularly by jamming with a wider range against a bully who has shown a propensity to open loose.
4. You Can’t Win A Tournament By Folding
While this bit of wisdom is true in the most literal sense, it makes for some pretty reckless advice. Although tournaments usually have top-heavy prize structures, where only the top finishers get the big money, we shouldn’t enter a tournament with the mentality of trying to win every pot, or even most of them. Whether it be because you are card dead or because your two-pair gets counterfeited on a horrible river, making disciplined folds usually means the difference between busting a tournament and keeping the dream of winning alive.
Summary
I’ve only discussed a few misguided poker platitudes, but the general lesson to be learned here is that you shouldn’t take every bit of strategy advice as gospel. Poker is a complex game, with many nuanced spots, and so it’s rare to find a ‘one-size-fits-all’ piece of advice. More often you’ll hear something like these overly-simplified one-liners. So, next time you are at the poker table and hear someone mutter one of these age-old truisms, think twice before making it your creed. ♠

George Mathias is a cash game specialist who rose through the ranks playing the Zoom games on PokerStars. Now a regular at the live tables, he frequently contributes to the training site www.upswingpoker.com – you can view all his posts at https://www.upswingpoker.com/author/georgemup/.