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Author: Marc Weinberg
More observations about tournament poker strategy gleaned from my abortive attempt to win money at the 2006 WSOP...
A key to doing well is understanding your stack size, not simply as a ratio in relation to blinds and antes (the "M" factor that Dan Harrington talks about courtesy of Paul Magriel), but in terms of how individual hands will play out.
The WSOP tournaments were interesting because the starting stacks were very small. They matched the buy-in for the tournament, so if you played in the $2000 no-limit event you received a mere 2000 chips and off you went. The blinds were 25-25 to start with but quickly rose up to 100-200 and if you were still stuck on 2000 chips, or had taken a hit and dropped down to anything less than 2000, then you were forced to make a move.
You needed to acknowledge that there were 2000 players and only 200 of you were going to get paid anything, so hanging around with a small stack until the dinner break impressed no one and achieved nothing.
Let's say you have 1400 chips in a multi-table poker tournament and the blinds are 50-100. Your M for the round is a healthy enough 9 (roughly, it's a little more than that, the equation is 1400/150 since there are no antes yet) and you have 14 big blinds so there appears to be no need to panic, but in a big tournament field there actually is reason to panic when you play a hand.
If you come in for a raise, which you want to do unless you're limping in from the blinds, then you are probably committing a minimum of 300-400 chips preflop. That leaves you with a little over 1000 chips in your stack. When you make that initial preflop raise you need to realize that you are possibly putting all your chips into play (that has to be the mindset).
If you raise and are re-raised what are you going to do? To lay down your hand and forfeit 25% of your chips without seeing a flop is an error, so when you make that raise you need to be ready to go to war. The main problem is that other players at your table recognize that you have a low stack.
This means that they are more likely to call you down or challenge you, because they feel that you are getting desperate and might have gone in with a less than premium hand. You do not have the luxury of stealing, however, in my opinion at this stage, so you should really have a hand that you feel comfortable moving all-in with, even if you only make that small raise.
At the WSOP I saw a number of players who did not appreciate this aspect of poker tournament strategy. As a small stack you automatically lose respect at the poker table, and the only way to reclaim it is with chips. You must be patient but when you have a hand you want to play it is better to push aggressively with it.
If your stack drops to 60% of what you started with and you are more than 3 levels into a tournament I would advise an all-in mentality. This is true more for big multi-table fields. There are no prizes for lasting a long time and still finishing out of the money. You either cash or you finished nowhere, so you need to make a move.
Similarly, if you are in a tournament with a big stack you need to understand how that changes your play. Jamie Gold played the best big stack poker I have ever seen to capture the Main Event, and he did it by never taking his foot off the gas. He constantly challenged opponents to risk their entire tournament on one hand, while only risking a percentage of his stack.
Too many big stacks get cautious, sit back, and try to wait it out. That's fine if you want to cash lower down, but if you want to win you need to obliterate opponents and play aggressively. You can afford to make a marginal call because the chips allow you the freedom to be creative. "Creative" in poker is a synonym for sucking out, by the way.
Related Gambling Articles:
- Poker Tournament Strategy - Bubble Bursting
- Tournament Poker Strategy - The Overpair Problem
- When To Raise In Poker
- NL Hold'em Tournaments - Basic Short Stack Strategy
- Advantages of Texas Hold'em Poker
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