Playing the Short Stack, Part 1

        You never count your money
         When you're sitting at the table,
         There'll be time enough for counting
         When the dealings done                        Kenny Rogers

   I have been aware for some time of the importance of stack size in poker tournaments. The number of big blinds that I have left is a critical factor for me in determining how to play (or whether to play) a particular hand. Of course there are other important factors in tournament play, but I think stack size is the dominant factor most of the time. Consult any book or article or tutorial on tournament strategy and you will usually find some variation on the following: play tight when the blinds are relatively small and conserve your chips, then as the blinds increase start playing more hands more aggressively. This is because the potential rewards become progressively larger as the blinds increase. It is because of this principal that I find myself frequently counting my chips at the table, and the deeper I go in the tournament, the more closely I will be monitoring my stack size.
   It is often stated that once your stack reaches a certain minimum size, then the aggression factor reaches the level of going all-in pre-flop. This stack size is the point where calling or raising becomes counter-productive and it is better to either fold or push. Basically, at this point any betting on a hand is likely to result in being pot-committed. If you have, say, ten big blinds (10BB) left and you make a minimum raise, that's already 20% of your stack committed to the hand. And what's going to happen post-flop? If you fold, you've given away chips that you couldn't afford to lose. If you bet or call, you've got at least 30% of your stack in the pot already with two more streets still to come. With a stack this short there's very little room for manoeuvre.
   But while a stack of 10BB is definitely a short stack, it still has considerable value as a single unit. In most cases where you are short-stacked there will be many other players with similar or only slightly larger stacks. Even a player with a stack of 20BB is going to think twice about calling an all-in bet that would commit half their stack to one hand. This is the principal of 'fold equity'. If you start pushing all-in with a decent-sized stack, then you can win in one of two different ways: you can get called and win the hand, or the other player(s) can fold and you win the pot uncontested. On the other hand, if you push with 5BB, you are far more likely to get called by the larger stacks and what's more, you're probably going to get more callers, which only reduces your chances of winning the hand.
   All of the above is standard poker tournament theory and I have been aware of many of these principals since I started getting serious about my poker play. It's about 5 years ago that I started putting the principal of short stack play into practise. This was when I used to play in a weekly Friday night tournament at the Phoenix Tavern. Right from the start I had a simple game plan: play my normal game (basically, play the same as a cash game) until I reach a stack of 10BB, then either fold pre-flop or go all-in. I would usually be shoving with any Ace, any pair, or any two picture cards (actually, I can't remember if I was risking my stack with a hand as weak as QJ, but I probably was). This strategy worked pretty well for me and I was well into profit by the time they stopped playing these games.
   My behaviour at these live tournaments was unusual; most of the other players weren't pushing pre-flop unless their stacks were very small. So most of the time they would get a lot of callers and get knocked out, or occasionally they'd get lucky and suddenly become the big stack. Online tournaments were and are somewhat different. Although I haven't played in multi-table tournaments much online, I've played in plenty of single-table tournaments (STTs). Even at the micro stakes level, the awareness of fold equity is considerably higher than in casual live tourneys. Players are far more inclined to push all-in with a decent sized stack in the later stages of the tournament. You still get some players who let their chips dribble away until they're almost down to nothing, but the majority have at least some idea of more aggressive short stack play. So, on the one hand it's trickier to negotiate the later stages of an online tourney, with more all-in shoves by the shorter stacks. On the other hand, I've found that these players are far more inclined to fold to an all-in bet and there are fewer 'hero calls' going on. So there are pros and cons to the different style of play found online.
   I now play regularly in a number of live tournaments, but it's important to remember that these are essentially 'pub tournaments' where most of the players are not particularly skilled and some of them are absolute beginners or gamblers, or drunk, or all of the above. There is not much knowledge of poker strategy to be found at these games, and this is particularly evident when it comes to the end game. I am constantly amazed at the number of players who will continue to limp in and call with very short stacks. If you have 10,000 in chips in front of you, it might sound a lot, but not if the big blind is 2,000. And yet I frequently see exactly this situation. By this stage I'm already either out of the tournament or a decent-sized stack. And this is because I don't wait around to get blinded out. Once I reach what I call the 'red zone' it's push or fold. If I push, there are three possible outcomes: everyone folds and I pick up enough chips to keep me going a little longer; I get called and win, which usually at least doubles my stack size; I get called and lose, which usually means I'm eliminated. Either one of these results is better than limping along with a micro stack and going out with a whimper.
   My current push-or-fold level is 12BB. I increased it from 10BB quite some time ago because I felt that trying to play a stack of 12 BB is pretty tricky, so I erred on the side of caution and expanded my red zone. My recent reading at www.pokerschoolonline.com has confirmed this for me. They recommend at least a 4X raise with premium hands and also say that if you're betting 1/3 of your stack you are pot committed and might as well go all-in. So if you have 12BB left, that's an automatic push. I've also tightened up the range of hands that I'm willing to push with. If there's a raise in front of me, all other things being equal, I'm probably folding everything but AK, AA, KK, QQ and JJ. With no raise I'm usually pushing with any Ace and any pair, and maybe KQ or KJ if the circumstances are right. This is not a hard and fast range of hands; the hands I'll play depend on a number of other factors. In fact, in recent months, I've become much more flexible on the boundaries of the red zone. Whether or not I push all-in now depends on my stack size, other players' stack sizes, my position and the number of callers in the pot.
  These days I am far less likely to push with A5 or 66 from middle  or early position. It's become increasingly apparent to me that if I get called with this sort of hand, I'll usually be facing a better hand. So position has become much more important. I'll push from early with the  raise-calling hands mentioned above (and maybe a few others) and then progressively widen my range as my position approaches the button. The ideal place for me to push from is the big blind. If there has been no raise, then I'm definitely shoving with any Ace, any pair, KQ, KJ, and maybe a few others.
   The other factor that I take into consideration these days is the number of chips in the pot. The more chips there are to win, the more likely I am to push all-in, especially in position. So if I'm sitting on the button, small blind or big blind, and a number of players limp in, then my all-in range suddenly becomes much wider. And conversely, if there are only a few chips in the middle, then I'm not so inclined to risk my stack for such a small reward.
   All this is based on the assumption that I have a reasonable sized stack; say 12BB-10BB. If I'm unfortunate enough for my stack size to drop below this, then my pushing range gets progressively wider. If at all possible, I never want to get below 5BB. I consider this to be my desperation level. If I have 4BB or less then, if I don't get a pushing hand by the time the big blind hits me, I'm almost certainly going all-in with any two cards. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't, but it's better to do something than just get blinded out. I was in a situation like this a few weeks ago and went all-in from the big blind with T6. When I was called by three other players, I thought it was all over. But I hit a 6 and no-one else hit anything. The look on the other players' faces: priceless. The only thing that may make me think twice about pushing in this situation is if one player has raised and one or more has called; in that case I'm only going in with something decent.
  So nowadays there are a lot of considerations that determine whether or not I push my chips into the middle. I am constantly re-evaluating my position as the stack sizes, the size of the pot, and my position changes. When I first started playing I had a fairly straightforward plan for playing a short stack in tournaments. But now it is much more subtle and when I'm at the table (or screen) my mind is a whirlpool of  constantly changing scenarios.