Many poker players cut their teeth in live cash games. These games often play at least 100 big blinds deep. Players who only have experience in these games can find themselves confused when they play tournaments with considerably shorter stacks. With under 20bbs, they can generally get by with one of the many push fold charts available online, but these charts don’t help much with stacks between 20-30 bbs. That’s why this is the toughest stack size to play, yet the most important one to learn for tournaments since the average stack often falls into this range when the big money is on the line. Here are a few tips I have come across over the years that can help you keep your stack afloat.
Play Mostly Big Cards
When stacks are short, you should mostly play big cards and start to drop smaller ones from your range. A hand like 54s is good in situations where you can flop a flush or straight draw and expect to win many times your investment on the later streets when you hit. There just aren’t enough chips left behind in the effective stacks for this when you are short. When stacks are deep, a hand like KJo suffers from terrible reverse implied odds. That means you can’t play for stacks when you make just one pair because most players are only willing to put in 100bbs against you over three streets when they have that hand beat. This is not the case when stacks are short. You can confidently get in 25bbs if you flop a pair with KJo, but you can’t with 54s.
Use a Bigger Opening Size
Most players advocate using a smaller opening size as your stack gets shorter. This reduces the percentage of your stack you lose when you have to fold to a three-bet preflop or a check raise post flop. While this is true, bigger opens from short stacks are less likely to get three-bet or go postflop than smaller opens in the first place. With 25bbs, every pot you win is significant. Just taking down the blinds and antes can increase your stack by 10%. If you can prevent a three-bet from a hand like A2s or a BB defend from a hand like T6s by opening to 3bbs as opposed to 2bbs with KJo, then I think the additional fold equity you get from the extra 1bb investment is a very good buy.
C-bet with a More Polarized Range
When you open from early position and get called by the big blind, you have a massive range advantage. For this reason, you often have a profitable c-bet with your entire range. This is not the case when the effective stack is short because there are many good, but marginal hands in your range that cannot stand a check raise all-in. This is not a threat 100bbs deep but it is 25bbs deep. For this reason, your c-betting range should consist of hands like top pair/top kicker and combo draws that don’t mind calling a shove and hands like bottom pair or gutters that don’t mind folding to a shove.
Marginal hands like second pair or open-ended straight draws should be checked back on the flop and often called on the turn in order to get to showdown to realize their equity as often as possible. You always have the option of betting the river as a bluff if you don’t think that you can win at showdown or betting for value once you become less concerned about a check raise.
Shove Preflop with Small Pairs
If you have a small pair like 22-77 in late position, you very likely have the best hand, but you’d rather not raise and play it postflop or call a three-bet shove from a hand like 98s with it. For these reasons, consider open shoving with them for 20-25bb stacks and three-bet shoving with them for 25-30bb stacks. These hands lose a considerable amount of value on the flop. When they are ahead, they rarely hold up on later streets and when they are behind, they do not make good bluffing candidates due to only having two outs. Additionally, the smaller ones like 22 and 33 work well as preflop shoves because they often fold out a few hands that dominate them like 44 and 55, but retain good equity against many of the hands that call like AK and AQ.
Exploit in Position Calling Ranges
When you open from middle position with a 25bb stack and get called by a player in position, you will usually be up against a Broadway hand. This can allow you to choose bluffs and value bets more effectively. For example, KQ on a Q high board is a monster in this situation because villain’s range can contain a lot of QJ and QT type hands, but AQ often three-bets preflop in this situation. Also, on an 8-high board, you can often fire multiple barrels as a bluff since villain shouldn’t have hands like K8 or 99+ in his flatting range very often and pocket pairs below the 8 will have a hard time calling future streets when over cards roll off.
Consider using a Limping Strategy
One of the first things we learn as we become better at poker is that open limping is usually a bad idea. While this is true, it can have its merits once stacks become short. With 25bb stacks, you may want to open raise a hand like J9s from the button, but fear a three-bet shove from aggressive players in the blinds. Using a limping strategy can allow you to increase your chances of seeing the flop in a spot like this one. Of course you will have to have some strong hands in your limping hands as well. You may even want to use a limp only strategy in the right scenario. It isn’t something you need to do against all opponent types, but it can be a powerful weapon to have in tool belt if you know when to use it.
I often see otherwise decent players making critical mistakes with short stacks between 20 and 30bbs. Many are good cash game players who simply have not had the experience necessary to play short stacks well. Others are recreational players whose primary goal is to play a lot of hands and try to make something postflop regardless of the mathematical constraints of the game. If you fall into either of these groups, I hope these tips will help you avoid some of the most common problems you encounter deep in tournaments.
