Fish Bites Man: Shorthanded Tournament Play

Advice for Hungry Poker Players

Topics: Epic Poker League, Fish Bites Man, Poker Strategy

Are you a shorthanded tournament warrior yet? If you’ve been reading this series and paying the slightest bit of attention, I’ll wager that you are. But there’s one area of shorthanded combat that we’ve yet to address: tournament play. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll break it down into two parts: shorthanded sit-n-gos (SnGs), and the final table of a multi-table tournament when play gets short and the lives of millions (okay, the profits of a few) hang in the balance.

SHORTHANDED SNG STRATEGY

When SnG tournament goes shorthanded, some players will have stacks deep enough for some postflop play, but others will already be in push-and-pray mode, where options are reduced to folding or shoving preflop. At this stage, the cardinal sin of tournament play is to let yourself get blinded down to the point where your stack is so short that it doesn’t threaten anyone. Don’t commit this sin! If you let yourself get down to three big blinds, you’d have to double up and then double up again just to be out of immediate danger. Don’t let it happen. Use your stack while it’s still got some clout.

If you have seven big blinds, for example, you need to find a place to push. Ideally, you want your push to coincide with another short stack’s big blind – so long as his stack isn’t so short that he has the right odds to call with any two cards. If that’s the case – if you know you’re going to get a call no matter what – make sure you have a hand containing an ace, a pair, or two cards above eight before you push.

If you’re a short stack facing bigger stacks that raise a lot, you might not get the right of first aggression. In that case, be prepared to reraise all in with your strong hands (middle to high pairs and good to great aces) or, if you still have enough chips to have some fold equity, swallow hard, come over the top with anything at all, and hope you don’t get called. However, if you know you’re going to get called and you don’t have a hand that wants a call, don’t make this move. Pushing all in on a later hand will actually work better for you, because you’ll still have some fold equity. Down here in the trenches of a high blinds-to-stacks ratio, it’s best to win without a fight.

If you have a big stack, you needn’t take big gambles. Stay aggressive – especially when you can attack unopened pots – but don’t make lots of wanton calls. Also, remember that if there are short stacks at the table, an all-in push from a medium stack means a real hand; if not, he’d wait to let the cripples get polished off.

When you get down to three-handed (in the money) your goal is to be in good position going into the heads-up battle. If you’re a big stack, play aggressively but selectively. If you’re not the big stack… floor it! Pretty much anytime you have eight big blinds or less and can be first in, go ahead and push. The big money is in the top two spots, so it’s worth taking chances to get there.

FINAL TABLE STRATEGY

When the final table gets short – six or fewer players – the blinds will likely be quite large relative to stack sizes, so your decisions and actions will be heavily stack dependent. If you’re among the shortest stacks at the table, plan to be very aggressive, seizing the initiative (and all available fold equity) by making lots of preflop all-in moves. Whenever possible, launch your attacks against big blinds who have stack sizes similar to yours, and try to avoid going to war with the large stacks if you can.

For example, suppose you are the small blind and action folds to you. You have K-9, normally a great hand to push with at this point. But the big blind has a big stack, and looking downstream, you see that someone with just seven big blinds is next to post the big blind. Fold your K-9, and preserve your fold equity. Then if you can be first one in when the seven-BB stack posts the big blind, steal no matter what two cards you have, for the short-stacked big blind is more likely to have rags than a real hand, and much more likely to play it safe and surrender his blind, since he knows that after the small blind he’ll have a few more free shots at picking up a real hand.

Note that if you have only four or five big blinds, you’d need to push with that K-9, for fear of being shut out of steal opportunities when you’re on the button or in the cutoff. But if you have around eight big blinds, then it’s probably worth risking being pre-empted, especially since you expect to be dealt a better hand than K-9 anyway.

If the gods smile on you and you have a big stack, just remember that it’s not your job to make promiscuous calls to eliminate the short stacks. Instead, it’s your job to be the aggressor and deny the short stacks their vital first-in, all-in opportunities. Don’t play sheriff, play bandit! Raise!

Raise! Raise! Raise!

Have I made myself clear?

Raise!

But beware of limpers.

You may face some opponents who limp habitually, and against such opponents, you can either limp to play a small pot or raise to keep the hand from going to a flop, but if you face a limp from an opponent who usually enters a pot by raising, or a limp from a player with six or fewer big blinds, that’s usually a signal of real strength. Having a big stack is no reason to throw around chips to satisfy your curiosity, or to snap off a bluff that ain’t one. Infrequent limpers are frequently trappers. Don’t let the prospect of a cheap flop turn expensive for you.  

Note that I haven’t talked about what to do if you’re medium-stacked in the shorthanded end game. That’s because there’s almost no such thing as a medium stack at this point. If your stack isn’t so big that you can bully the short stacks, then it’s probably so small as to be shortly imperiled by the rising blinds. Remember that you’re seeing the blinds a lot more frequently shorthanded. You can’t afford to wait. Let aggressiveness win you some uncontested pots, and hope that luck (or your foes’ impatience and willingness to gamble with worse hands) is on your side when you finally show one down.