Category Archives: Tournament Play

How to Play Short Stacked In MTT’s

There are a range of very defined methods for playing short stacked in an MTT which are all derivatives of a main tenet of short stack strategy which in very general terms is to play only the best starting hands and play them very aggressively. When short stacked you can’t afford to go limping into pots or giving away BB’s unnecessarily, it is not in your interests to bleed chips to your opponents who will in all likelihood have larger stack sizes than yours. You need to have a pre-defined set of hands that you are prepared to play in a given position at the table when you reach a pre-determined level of chips. Most people determine that they are playing short stacked if they have a stack size in the region of 10-35 times the BB. Once you hit these levels you should consider your short stack strategy. When you are short stacked you need to take into account the following variables –

  • Stack size relative to the BB
  • Starting hand strength
  • Betting strength
  • Table position
  • Opponents betting

Stack Size Relative to the BB When Short Stacked

It’s fair to assume that if you are in the 10-35 BB range in a MTT tournament you need to start considering your options. If you are at the lower range, you need to start to seriously consider your options. Short stack strategy can be tailored slightly depending on how drastically short stacked you are. For example if you only have 10 times the BB you may need to consider betting big with lesser starting hands so you don’t fade out of the tournament due to the blinds and antes. Patience is a key factor in playing poker well, it is even more important when utilising a short stack strategy.

Starting Hand Strength When Short Stacked

As a general rule you should consider playing these range of starting hands if you are short stacked at the following levels –

35 BB
* AA
* KK
* QQ
* AKs
* AQs
* JJ
* AK
* AQ
* AJs

25 BB
* AJ
* TT
* ATs
* KQs

15 BB and below
* AT
* KQ
* KJs
* KJ
* AXs
* AX
* QJs
* QJ

Betting strength When Short Stacked

Simply put if you are in the BB ranges as noted above and you don’t get a starting hand that is the equivalent to the starting hands I have mentioned, you should not be betting at all. If you have a poor hand on the BB and can check to see a flop, that’s fine, you could always hope for a lucky flop and take it from there, but do not under any circumstances call a bet in the hope that you can see a cheap flop. Invariably, a deep stack will see you calling and raise you. Therefore, if you don’t have a playable hand, don’t play it. On the other hand if you are dealt a strong hand in the range displayed above, it’s time for some action. There are two schools of thought if you have a playable starting hand using short stack strategy. The first is to bet half your stack with a view to potentially betting the other half post flop. The second is to simply go all in pre flop. Of course, there will be an element of luck in both betting options. Take into account the relative strength of your starting hands and also the historical behaviour of the table when faced with all in or large raises. A point to consider is that if you have to play short stacked for a while then you can become predictable if you choose to go all in when you hit a large hand every time. You will be faced with the frustrating scenario of nobody calling your all in which would be a waste of your great cards so try to mix up your play between large raises (half the pot post flop if there are callers or 4 times the BB for example) and all in bets. Folding equity is an important factor to consider when deciding to raise big or go all in. The higher the bet you make, the easier you are making it for your opponent to fold their cards. For example, say that you have 3 callers to your all in bet, 2 of those may not hit the flop and fold post flop due to the perceived weakness of their hand in relation to the amount of chips it would take to continue. Therefore, you are no longer against 3 other players, it us just you and one other player.

Table Position and Opponents Betting When Short Stacked

Table position is a critical element of poker when playing the short or deep stack so it is important to consider your table position and the betting strength of your opponents when you choose to play a hand. Take into account that if you are in late table position and nobody has raised before you and you have a playable hand that is even at the lower end of your acceptable starting hands list you should be confident to enter the hand with a big raise or all in bet. If in mid position with no raises, play your mid range acceptable hands strongly and if in early position play your very best starting hands strongly. If there has been a raise or multiple raises before you, it is important that you play the most powerful starting hands in your acceptable starting hands list very strongly. If you don’t have an ace with strong kicker or a very high pair you need to consider strongly whether to enter the pot at all.

Short Stack Strategy Factors to Consider

 

  • Select a range of hands to play when at a given BB level and play them hard. If you get a starting hand not in your range of playable hands don’t play it unless you can see the flop for free.
  • Don’t attempt to bluff. If you have a strong hand, play it very strongly and get the chips in the middle.
  • Don’t call any bets (certainly in early position), either bet big or make an all in bet.
  • Small pairs and connectors are useless starting hands when using a short stack strategy.
  • If you make a big pot and your stack size increases outside of the short stack zone, start to play your natural game again.
  • Have patience and stick to the plan!

Drive the Dream Fiasco at PartyPoker

Out of interest I decided to play in one of the freerolls at PartyPoker that was geared towards the Drive the Dream promotion just to see what level the folks were playing at. What a mistake that was! Read on for details on why I believe PartyPoker is one of the worst online poker rooms around at the moment.

Basically PartyPoker ran 2 or 3 qualifiers in order to get through to the final $15,000 Guaranteed Drive the Dream Final Satellite that was to be played on 12th September. Anyway, I played in one of the freerolls which was so soft that I qualified for the 12th September 2010 tourney straightaway. Fair enough I thought, I might check out the action on 12th September as there are a couple of places on offer for the Drive a Dream Final in London. So I was sat in front of my laptop on 12th September at 14:00ET ready for the off along with 800 odd other players. The tourney kicked off at the scheduled time and we got about 2 hands in and that where things started to go wrong… After 2 hands were played our table was “paused” for a few minutes, this pattern then carried on for about 10 minutes after which we were then placed on a paused status for much longer. 5 minutes passed, then 10, the 20, then 30, during which time the other participants were getting restless and one even commented that is was a regular occurrence for PartyPoker to mess up monthly finals. I waited (foolishly) for 30 minutes on hold after which time I gave up and emailed PartyPoker support.

I won’t go into details with regards to the level of support offered by PartyPoker suffice to say that they couldn’t find me on their systems, and only accepted I was a player once I provided a screenshot. It went even further downhill from there. Additional attempts at resolution were even less satisfactory from the hapless support staff there.

So essentially, I am none the wiser as to why the tourney didn’t progress and there is no opportunity to re-play that I can see. The PartyPoker support staff are worse than useless and there has been no official communication to players that were due to play in the tourney so I guess that’s it! Serves you right for playing in a freeroll I hear you say. Fair comment. I won’t be doing it again, certainly not at PartyPoker.

What Are Sit N Go Tournaments?

Sit N Go (or Sit and Go, or SNG) is essentially a small scale (usually) single table poker tournament which will start when a pre-determined number of players have joined the table.

Standard Sit N Go’s can feature as few as 2 player’s heads up straightaway or up to 10 people playing. All players will start with the same number of chips. Often 1,000 – 2,000 each and the game will progress until one player has accumulated all the chips on the table. Depending on the number of players starting the game, a percentage of the buy-in (the fee it costs to play the game) will be awarded to the winner and sometimes second and third place finishers. If the Sit N Go tourney is a heads up game between two players only then the winner will take the spoils, but if there are 10 players the payout will usually be shared between the first second and third placed players. A common split is 50/30/20 if three placed are paid out upon. If two places are paid, a common split is 75/25. All of the major online poker venues offer a wide variety and Sit N Go games ranging from buy-in’s of a few dollars to several thousand dollars at a time.

At any one time PokerStars will have tens if not hundreds of Sit N Go’s running at any one time so you will always be able to find a Sit N Go tournament at any time of the day or night to play in. It is great practice to play against set number of poker players at any one time as you can choose the size of the Sit N Go tournament that you enter. You may prefer playing on a small scale against 6 players in total, or you could join a larger Sit N Go that contains 40 starters. Sit N Go’s are excellent practice for the final table of MTT’s (multi table tournaments) and as the buy-in fee is fixed they can be good practice for beginners that are initially too anxious to play cash games with their own money.

Psychologically the thought that you buy-in to a Sit N Go and that buy-in is the most money you will lose can be a comfort to some player and can leave them uninhibited, whilst the constant worry of a run of bad beats in a cash game can make some players (usually beginners) play with fear. There are also forms of Sit N Go’s called “turbos” or sometimes just known as “fast”. These are games where the poker player has less decision time and the blinds go up quicker. These can be a thrill if you are short of time, but they can see a lot of loose, aggressive play and as a consequence can sometimes be the equivalent of a crap shoot. There are definite strategies specific to Sit N Go tournaments that are in vast contrast to cash games for instance, and we will cover those in the Sit N Go strategy section.

What Are MTT’s Or Multi Table Tournaments?

Multi table tournaments are a form of poker which involves hundreds if not thousands of poker players all playing simultaneously across a number of tables online. Poker room software will regularly move players to different tables when participants have been knocked out and each MTT will continue until a single player retains all the chips at the end of the tournament.

Usually in large MTT’s the payout starts when you reach the final 10% of players and the prize will gradually in increase as you get to the winner. So provided that you manage to finish in approximately the top 10% of players, you should get a payout.

Probably the most famous MTT is the World Series of Poker which costs several thousands of dollars to enter (although there is no shortage of players). In 2009 there were 6,494 entrants and the winner Darvin Moon picked up a cool $8,546,435 winner’s cheque.

Texas Hold ’em MTT’s are generally the largest MTT’s in poker simply because Texas Hold ’em is currently the most popular form of poker in the world today, so competition amongst MTT players is fierce. There are regular online multi table tournaments with varying buy-in levels. Unsurprisingly the MTT’s that are the cheapest to enter will typically include the highest volume of players. In fact many online poker sites offer freeroll (free to play) MTT’s which can sometimes involve a real money prize or more commonly will offer the winner or the top finishing players an entry into a “satellite tournament” or tournament that other players have actually paid to enter and will involve some form of cash prize or prize incentive. These MTT freerolls can be tempting to enter, particularly for beginners, but the odds of finishing with a top placing in a field of 9,000 for the popular PokerStars daily Texas Hold’em MTT freerolls for instance are not high and the amount of time it will take to actually complete the tournament with such a large field is not a good return on investment in terms of your own poker playing time in the opinion of most.

Satellite tournaments are MTT’s that cost a relatively low fee to buy-in and will allow you to qualify for big multi table tournaments. For example, there may be a tournament that you would like to play in but the buy-in is too steep, say $1,000. There may be a satellite tournament on offer that costs $50 to enter and the top finishers will qualify for the $1,000 buy-in event free of charge. It is worth looking out for these paid satellite events as they can provide pretty good value and a challenging level of play. In fact, the majority of players that play in the World Series of Poker now do so by qualifying via a multi table satellite event.