Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy
- Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy List
- Short Stack Poker Strategy
- Winning Poker Strategy
- Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy Game
- Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy Games
- Learn to not give up when you become short stacked, and be aware of when you are becoming a short stack. Just adjust your strategy and consider the situation without letting frustration lead you to playing on tilt. I’ve had much success making comebacks after becoming short stacked at various points in a tournament.
- In addition, having a smaller stack is the most common situation to be in after the first few levels of a tournament. Every no-limit Texas hold'em player needs to learn both small-stack strategy (also called short-stack strategy) and medium-stack strategy.
Play Short Stack Poker Like a Pro
As tournament players, we constantly find ourselves in situations where we have to play short stack poker. For the purpose of this article, I will define a short stack as 25 big blinds or less when the average player we are up against has considerably more than this. The small stakes poker tournaments I play are often profitable because of mistakes others make when short-stacked — even those who are otherwise decent deep-stacked players.
Here are five of the most common blunders we see players make in poker tournaments on the Play WSOP site when short-stacked.
Watch Ross Jarvis as he discusses how to play the short-stack effectively in multi-table tournaments. Sure, it sucks when you get short – but if you play wel.
1. Limping in to see flops
“I mean, do you just not like poker? You know it’s more fun if you see a flop every now and then!”
That statement was made to me after I’d shoved my 25-big blind stack over multiple limpers for the third time in a tournament I played at Planet Hollywood during the World Series of Poker this past summer. “You only have one move” was another one I frequently heard from players who did not understand how to adjust to shrinking stack sizes as the blinds increased. These guys wanted to get in cheaply with a speculative hand hoping to hit a flop, and I was the late-position party pooper who constantly ruined it for everybody.
From my point of view, these players would likely have raised rather than limped if they held good hands. This is a concept sometimes referred to as having a “capped range,” meaning that the very best hand they would choose to limp with rather than raise could only be so strong. Now, we’ve all seen guys limp and granted this is a concern from the first limper, but how many times have you seen a third guy limp behind with in a shallow-stacked game? If the first guy is a habitual limper and not particularly trappy, then it is usually safe to assume that everyone limping afterwards does so with capped ranges.
So what can I do with that knowledge when I have a 25-big blind stack? Say we’ve already reached the stage of the tournament when antes have been introduced and I’m in the big blind. A hand comes up with a couple of limpers plus a small blind who completes, meaning when the action gets to me there’s already about 5 big blinds in the pot. A shove here will take down the pot most of the time and add 20% to my stack.
This is a play I make often on the WSOP Social Poker game, including with relatively weak hands like medium-suited gappers or medium off-suit aces. While others are trying to hit flops with these hands, I am the young punk who is denying them that opportunity and winning pots without ever seeing the flop.
2. Not defending the big blind effectively
Playing a short stack well from the big blind can be a delicate balancing act. You cannot be too tight and you cannot be too loose. I see tons of players making mistakes in this position by leaning too far in either of these two directions. If I have a big stack and I notice a player is too tight from the big blind, I will raise him with a wide range and usually win preflop. If I notice that he is too loose, I also will raise him with a wide range, and usually win postflop when he calls and then folds to my continuation bet.
To prevent me from getting out of line here, the tight player should start to resteal by shoving all-in on me with a wide range. If I open to 2.5x the big blind, then his resteal will net him 5 BBs from the blinds and antes. There’s that 20% increase without ever seeing the flop again. Do that a few more times and you will have gained the same amount of chips as a double-up without having to win a flip.
If I am dealing with the loose player, I will have a slightly stronger range so she can’t resteal on me as widely as the tight player could. What she can do is check-shove me on some flops where I am automatically c-betting. Against a player like this, my c-betting percentage on the flop may be as high as 80-85%, so if she gets a decent piece of it, she should go with her hand against my over-aggressive range.
3. Open shoving for too many chips
Take care, though, not to be shoving your short stack too liberally. This is a mistake that I have made in the past and sometimes I still revert to it.
Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy List
Let’s say it folds to me in middle-to-late position and I have 20-25 BBs with a hand like -offsuit or -suited. There might be a temptation to open-shove to keep from having to raise-fold such hands or try to play them postflop against a tricky player in the big blind. This is a mistake because it risks way too much for very little gain. In such a spot an all-in raise that gets everyone to fold would only earn me around 2.5 BBs.
Instead, I should take my chances with more standard raises if I expect the players behind to respond in a way that is profitable, or just fold if I expect those players to give me trouble with effective responses to my raises. Instead of taking marginal open-steal spots vs. good players, it is better to save my chips for restealing.
4. Restealing with no fold equity
If you have not played your 20-25 BB stack well, you will soon find yourself with a 10-15 BB stack once the blinds increase. At this point, even the tightest of players will realize that they are slipping closer to the desperation zone.
I’ve seen guys who were tight the whole tournament get tired of me raising their big blind and finally decide to take a stand and resteal for their last 10 big blinds with a hand like -offsuit. The problem for them, though, is if I have something like -offsuit or even -suited, I can call because with their short stacks I would only need around 35% equity against their range.
“How can you call with that?” is a question I will hear in such situations. But had they made the same move when they had just a few more chips, I could not have called.
5. Blinding off
This is probably the worst mistake of all to make when short-stacked. If you have not played your 10-15 BB stack well, you will subsequently find yourself with less than 10 big blinds more than your fair share of times when the blinds go up. At this point, your options become very limited. You basically have to pick any decent hand and shove it. If you do not get a decent hand by the time you are down to around 5 big blinds, you may have to shove any two cards whenever there is a very tight player in in the big blind.
I remember a friend once telling me how he had folded -offsuit from middle position when he had 8 big blinds. Later when the blinds increased, he finally picked up and shoved his last 3 big blinds into a guy who called without even looking at his cards. He lost to and could not believe how badly he had run.
The truth of the matter is even if he’d won the hand, he still would have been in bad shape unless he’d found another premium hand very soon. Don’t be that guy.
Conclusion
At some point, almost every poker tournament becomes shallow, even those great free tournaments on the WSOP Social Poker app. If you want to improve your play, you must learn how to play a short stack well. If you are primarily a cash game player who wants to play a tournament but you don’t have much experience with short stacks, you might occasionally play some sit-n-gos to work on these skills. In my opinion, short-stacked play is the most important aspect of tournament poker.
This article was originally published on September 14, 2014. Last update: July 22, 2019.
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tournament strategyno-limit hold'em
Short Stack Poker Strategy
You’re probably going to be short-stacked in every poker tournament you play, which makes short-stacked skills a must for every player to acquire. The first, and most obvious concept about playing a short stack is that it requires patience and discipline to wait for the right situation in order to try to double through an opponent and get back in the poker tournament.
Assessing the Situation
When you find your stack shrinking, the first thing you need to do is to assess the situation by gathering a few facts that will put your short stack into some perspective. Just answer these few questions:
- How big is your chip stack compared to others at your table?
- How big is your chip stack compared to the size of the blinds?
- How big is your chip stack compared to the average stack?
- How many hands can you look at before you bleed to death or else have so few chips in hand that even when you do go all-in, you’re bound to be called by someone?
Consider yourself short stacked whenever you have between 10 and 20 big blinds in front of you. When you have fewer than 10 big blinds, you have no option to make plays except for folding or pushing all-in. You shouldn’t call, and shouldn’t expect that any tricky plays on your part will succeed. Your options are only two: Fold or push.
Once you have more than 20 big blinds in front of you, you have some risk-taking latitude. It’s not quite enough to play your normal tournament game, but you’re not in imminent danger.
The Shorter Your Stack, the More it Costs
As your stack gets shorter, each bet, call, or raise you make takes an increasingly larger portion of your entire tournament equity. You really can’t play drawing hands because the cost of drawing and failing is too high. As your stack gets shorter, you need to look for opportunities to move all-in. But you can’t let things get too desperate. An all-in bet with just a few chips won’t threaten anyone. An all-in bet with 15 or 20 times the big blinds is still a threat to an opponent, while an all-in move with only three times the big blinds in hand won’t scare anyone.
You Can’t Wait for a Premium Pair
When you’re short stacked, you really don’t have the latitude to wait for a big premium pair, although if you are fortunate enough to be dealt a big pocket pair, you should have no qualms about pushing all-in with them. But you also have to think about pushing with any pocket pair, A-K, A-Q, A-J, A-T, and even weaker hands, such as Ace-anything, K-Q, K-J, K-T, K-9, Q-10+, or even J-10 if you have position and a number of players have folded before it’s your turn to act.
In fact, if you’re at a fairly tight table, you can consider pushing with any two cards as long as no one has entered the pot before you, and you’re in late position. Obviously, the larger your stack, the better your chances are of succeeding.
You Have to Double Up
One of the drawbacks to being short stacked is that your opponents are all aware of your situation, and are more willing to call-in order to knock you out. This is particularly true when you’ve reached the pay ladder of a poker tournament and each player eliminated guarantees those surviving a higher pay-out.
There’s not much you can do about that; your short stack has precluded much of the maneuvering room you’d have if you owned more chips. You have to double up. Nothing else matters as much at this point in your tournament.
Forget About Protecting Your Chips
Good short stacked play breaks many of the rules of tournament poker. In a sense, your short stacked style is diametrically opposed to what you’ve learned about tournament poker. All tournament players know how important it is to protect their chips. But when you’re short stacked, you really don’t want to protect them. You want to find a good situation – that’s critical – to gamble for all your chips in an effort to get back into contention.
You have to get your chips in the middle of the table and hope for the best. Finding a good situation means you have to be first into the pot if that’s possible. Being first in means your opponents are faced with a decision to call or fold. If you are not first into the pot and come in calling – or even raising for all your chips – you have less chance of winning the pot without having to show down the best hand.
A limper in front of you might be someone with a premium hand who’s hoping another player raises so he can come over the top. If there’s a raiser in the pot before you act, you need a very strong hand to re-raise for all your chips. Without a big holding you have to release any of those marginal poker hands you were hoping to play unless, of course, you are so short stacked that you have no other option.
Short Stacked Play is Simplified Poker
Bluffing, calling and floating, and other sophisticated poker plays are predicated on an ability to make creative moves based on your read of your opponent and not necessarily on the strength or potential of your hand. While creative plays have their place at the poker table, just forget about them when you’re short stacked because you’re in a position where the cost of trying a sophisticated play and failing is something you can no longer afford.
As opposed to making big bets on the turn and river, as you’d be prone to with an average sized stack or larger, when you’re short stacked most of your action will take place before the flop or on it. In essence, when you’re short stacked, the last thing you want to do is play a hand to the showdown. You want to bet – and win – early.
Implied Odds Are Not Important
With a short stack, the concept of implied odds also goes out the window. You simply don’t have enough chips to win a large pot on a later betting round. If all you have are 10 or 15 times the big blind, you won’t win any big pots, because you don’t have enough chips to play anything but a smallish, all-in pot.
Playing mid-range and smallish suited connectors, and set-mining with small pairs are also strategies you can toss out of your toolbox when short stacked. They come with a cost and the chance of succeeding with hands like these are small.
Short stacked play means you need to get your money all-in with a big pair or big connectors and hope to win by making top pair with a strong kicker.
Don’t Limp-in if You’re Short Stacked
If you are a short stack, you’ll need to avoid the temptation to limp-in and hope to catch part of the flop inexpensively. If you’re down to 10 big blinds or fewer, you need to go all-in if you play a hand. With 15 or more big blinds, you can afford to make your usual raise . If you have between 10 and 15 big blinds, you’re in the judgment zone and will have to decide whether to go all-in or make a standard raise.
It may seem like a good idea to limp-in and try to catch a good flop inexpensively, but it is more profitable to raise and build the pot with a strong starting hand.
Be Selective; Be Aggressive
If you haven’t gone all-in on the flop, once the flop is exposed you will have a choice to make: push or fold. That’s it. No other options. It’s all or nothing when you see the flop short stacked.
If it looks as if someone else will bet if you check, you are usually better off being the aggressor instead of the caller. If you come out betting, your opponent might fold. If he bets and you call all-in, then you’ve relegated yourself to having to win at the showdown, if you are to win at all.
Conclusion
Here are the three main things to keep in mind when you’re short stacked in a poker tournament:
- Don’t speculate
- Commit while you still have enough chips
- Be first into the pot
You can’t play a small pocket pair in hopes of flopping a set, and you can’t play mid-range suited connectors when you’re a short stack because the odds against hitting your hand are long. Even when you do get lucky, you’re so short stacked that the amount you can win is reduced. Moreover, you can’t take the risk of calling only to have to release your hand if the flop misses you. Be sure the short stacked hands you play are those you’re willing to go to the mat with. You don’t have enough chips to play hit-to-win poker. Go all the way or don’t go at all.
If you are really close to the felt, you have to commit to a hand – and it might just be any hand – while you still have enough chips to convince opponents that folding is in their best interest (also known as fold equity). If you have just a few chips left, you’re going to have to win at the showdown to win at all. There’s a difference between playing with a short stack and playing with barely any chips at all.
Before pushing all-in as a short stack, be sure you’re first into the pot or you have very good cards. If you have 10 big blinds, you still have enough chips to threaten opponents and they will still need a decent hand to call. But if you are not first into the pot, you need a big hand to play because you will probably have to go to the river to win.
Related Lessons
Winning Poker Strategy
By Lou Krieger
Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy Game
The author of many best-selling poker books, including “Hold’em Excellence” and “Poker for Dummies”. A true ambassador of the game and one of poker’s greatest ever teachers.