5 Big Tournament Leaks

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5 BIG TOURNAMENT LEAKS

BY RICK DACEY

FEBRUARY 2012

Busting MTTs too easily? Min-cashing when you should be final-tabling? Then

its time to plug those leaks

Tournaments are high variance affairs. You get dealt Ace-King, someone else

gets Queens, the board bricks and youre out again. Its not your fault, thats just

the way it goes. Now keep telling yourself that.

Each tournament is a series of situations and decisions, full of missed

opportunities, exploitation, concentration lapses and moments of cowardice. All

that, aside from factoring in coolers, bad luck and being card dead, makes itdamn hard to win a tournament, but lets nail five of the biggest mistakes that are

made and how you can avoid them.

1. Stacking off too early

What is the leak?

Anyone can get coolered, but stacking off too light, too early marks you out as a

big flapping fish. Just stop it.

Why is it a leak?

If you lose your stack way before the money appears even on the distant horizon

then you probably either got coolered or played badly. The former is merely

annoying, but the latter needs addressing.

Losing an entire 100BB stack with Kings or Aces on a ten-high or Jack-high flop

does not count as a cooler, it usually counts as bad play. Too many players are

willing to get stacks in with one-pair hands and overpairs, and then berate their

opponents for calling with trash, even if the call was justified because you were

willing to stack off with one pair.

How do we fix it?

Learn how to fold or go into bluff-catching mode if youre consistently busting

out of tournaments too early. If youre a regular cash game player then youll


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probably have a better grasp of the earlier stages of a tournament thanks to more

practice at deeperstacked play. Youll also have seen how often big pairs get

undone by flopped sets, two-pairs and combo draws in single-raised pots.

Unless youve got good reason to believe that someone is super-loose and spewy

you can often go into bluff-catching mode or just pass on particularly

coordinated boards. By adopting a check and call posture in the correct situations

you might be able to extract value out of players with second pair or a weak top

pair who might otherwise pass or only give you action with the hands in their

range that crush you.

Is it perfect power poker? No, but in many smaller buy-in tournaments youre not

going to be playing the Jake Codys of this world, and you must adapt your play

to the rocks and pedestrian players. Stop bundling in 60 or 70 big blinds in a

single hand with top pair. Its probably not good.

Another way of going broke less often is to reduce the number of hands youre

playing, because if youre involved in fewer hands thats fewer situations where

you can go bust. Sounds simple? It is. Okay, the flip side is that its going to be

harder to run up a monster stack, but if your problem is busting out too early then

you need to focus on survival first and foremost.

If youre going bust or losing large chunks of your stack with hands such as Q-T

or T-7 then how about not playing those hands?

2. Picking the wrong fights

What is the leak?

Not adjusting to different player styles and subscribing to an egocentric view ofthe world.

Why is it a leak?

Every tournament has a broad spread of players, from super-tight rocks to

kamikaze spewtards, total beginners to MTT pros. If youre not constantly

assessing the players at your table you can miss key spots and easy folds, and get

yourself into unnecessarily difficult situations, such as playing good aggressiveplayers out of position.


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How do we fix it?

Cold hard honesty is the first step, and concentration the second. If there is a

player whose game you rate, you might want to avoid tangling with them in

marginal spots and instead focus on the players who appear to be softer and more

exploitable.

Tougher players dont have to be avoided altogether, but try to play them in

position when you do engage them as it will help to level the odds or, even

better, tip the scales in your favour. Making notes is a good starting point if you

dont do so already.

The act of typing notes will help you in the future and, perhaps more importantly,

keep you focused in the here and now. By paying attention to your opponents

youll be able to make folds that you wouldnt be able to if you were playing

generically, or bluff all-in over river blocker bets that you might otherwise give

up on.

3. Blinding out

What is the leak?

Dribbling your stack down to just a few big blinds then busting.

Why is it a leak?

Letting yourself get blinded out of a tournament is one of the biggest schoolboy

errors you can make. Yes, there are always exceptions, such as when playing in a

satellite tourney or playing snug to creep into the money, but in most casesfolding your stack down to below ten big blinds is a massive leak.

Youre letting yourself get to a point where your shoves are going to get called

very wide and youhave probably been failing to take advantage of good spots.

How do we fix it?

When you find yourself with less than 30 big blinds you should start looking outfor good three-bet shoving spots with hands that dont necessarily always flop


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brilliantly, such as small pairs.

Imagine youre down to 26 big blinds and a relatively aggressive player opens

for 2.5 big blinds from middle position. Youre in the hijack with pocket eights.

You can call off almost 10% of your stack in an attempt to flop a set, but youre

most likely to find yourself folding to a continuation bet.

A preflop raise could allow you to get away if they come back over the top but,

quite frankly, thats a horrible play, leaving a third of your stack in the middle

when you could easily be on the right side of a coinflip. If you shove youll often

take the pot there and then, picking up as much as five or six blinds for free if

antes are in play.

If you are called, either by the original raiser or one of the remaining players yet

to act, which wont happen frequently, youll often be a slight favourite against

Ace-King or Ace-Queen and occasionally a four-toone dog against a larger pair.

Dont get too results orientated when this happens if its a good spot to shove

then you should take it. And you could always suck out. In the right situations

and against players with loose opening ranges you can shove a wide range of

hands with around 20 big blinds: pairs, Broadway hands and even occasionally

some suited connectors.

Sure, youll bust out spectacularly sometimes, but overall youll give yourself

more chances to run deep rather than dribbling down to 8BB, shoving A-T and

losing to pocket fives. Again.

4. Betting too big in the late stages

What is the leak?

Put simply, many players are getting their mid to late stage tournament bet sizing

all kinds of wrong. You dont need to bet as much.

Why is it a leak?

The best tournament players dont open-raise for three or four big blinds,

particularly in the later stages, where a min-raise becomes de rigueur amongthose in the know. Once play becomes a matter of shoving or folding, you can


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achieve the same results with a smaller bet that risks less of your stack.

How do we fix it?

In the later stages of a tournament when the average stack-to-blinds ratio drops,

the minimum raise preflop becomes the most effective bet size. Youre still

taking aggressive action to win the blinds and antes, but risking the very

minimum when youre going to be shoved on more often than flat-called.

When your stack is some 25-40BB deep those extra chips can quickly add up.

Minor alterations like this can have large knock-on effects too. If you do get

called then you can again risk less to win the pot on the flop, as there wont be as

much in there. And you can also alter your postflop betting in the later stages

where proportionally smaller flop bets will have the same effect of picking up a

shove or a fold.

Whybet a pot-sized 20k when an 8k c-bet will have the same result in the

majority of cases?

5. Incorrectly calling three-bets

What is the leak?

There is a time and place for calling three-bets, and its not when you have no

idea where you are or what youre going to do.

Why is it a leak?

Calling three-bets, particularly out of position, can be a recipe for disaster for any

but the very best postflop heroes. Theres been plenty written about calling three-bets when youre deep enough with small or medium pocket pairs for set-mining

purposes, but in the middle to late stages those situations will be fairly scarce.

Time and time again youll call a three-bet only to face a c-bet on a flop which

you have missed or have only partially connected with. How much heat do you

think youll be able to face with 8-9 suited?

How do we fix it?


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There are two key options presenting themselves at this point: four-bet or fold. A

fold is quite straightforward you get rid of your hand and move on.

If youre now making smaller raises preflop then you can get away fairly easily

for a downtick of just a couple of big blinds. The other road takes you to four-bet

city. Four-bet city is a fun place, but its also dangerous if you dont know what

youre doing.

If you suspect your opponent may be three-betting light then youre going to win

a lot of pots by coming back over the top with a four-bet. Occasionally they will

come back over the top with a five-bet, at which point you can get it in with the

hands you want action with and toss the ones you dont.

Its important to make sure that when you pull out a four-bet bluff its against

either a thinking aggressive player, who will understand what youre

representing with the small four-bet and fold a lot of hands in their range, or an

unthinking rock-ish player, who will muck all but the top of their range to make

your four-bet profitable.

As a good rule of thumb you should never be sticking a third of your stack in

preflop planning to fold to a reraise, as there are very few hands you arent

getting a good price to call. In theory, four-bets polarise you to premium hands

that youre happy to get it all-in with and bluffs, and as such you can make that

four-bet small not that much more than a minraise over your opponents three-

bet.

You should always plan what youre going to do should your opponent come

back over the top. Call their shove, move in over the top or pass? Dont leave

yourself humming and hawing: think before you act.

POKER THOERY: TOURNAMENTS

BY LUKE DESULTORY HATFIELD

AUGUST 2012

The theoretical differences between cash games and tournaments and how to

build your edge

For a very long time I have purely been focused on the theory of cash games. I

used to be an 18-man and nineman sit-and-go pro when I started my poker career

but I have since forgotten all of my sit-and-go theory knowledge.


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But during the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) I thought it

would be a good time to refresh my tourney skills and I thought I would share

various things I have re-learnt in the process. So, I will start from the beginning;

Given that tournaments have even more variance than cash games, one can

conclude that one will need a larger bankroll for playing a $100 tournament than

a $100 buy-in cash game.

This is assuming you are of similar relative proficiency at both types of game. I

havent bashed the

numbers, but there is a consensus you need 100 buyins to be safe from busting

from playing tournaments. A fairly conservative estimate for cash games would

be about 50 buyins. So thats at

least twice as much!

If you are competent, it seems you will be in the money (cash prizes) around

20% on average for sitandgos and maybe slightly less for MTTs. So on

average, you will only win cash once every fi ve tournaments you play. Please

dont be shorttermist and think you are competent because you won one or

because you cashed in three straight tournaments.

You will need a much bigger sample sizes than this. It is said that you will need

to play 1,000 tournaments to discount variance, but I think this is an

underestimate and you can find out why if

you read myvariance articles on cash games here.

Measuring Skill Levels

Tournament players measure their competence by a term called Return On

Investment (ROI). ROI is calculated by the following sum: (total cash prizes total money spent on buyins)/total money

spent on buyins.

The best sitandgo players earn 20% ROIs and general consensus says that the

best MTT players can earn 100% ROI. This is completely different to the

BB/100 win rate measure that cash game players use.

By far the most important difference to understand when transitioning totournaments is that in cash games, any +EV move should be executed because
http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/search/?words=variance&searchby=maxim&x=0&y=0http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/search/?words=variance&searchby=maxim&x=0&y=0http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/search/?words=variance&searchby=maxim&x=0&y=0http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/search/?words=variance&searchby=maxim&x=0&y=0


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+ChipEV is directly related to +$EV. But in tournaments, as your stack doesnt

have a fixed value, +ChipEV doesnt always equal +$EV. In other words, you

can make a move that will win you chips, which will lose you money in the long

term.

Sometimes +ChipEV can be $EV and therefore in order to be successful one

has to relinquish some +ChipEV spots in tournaments that one never should in a

cash game. This is all assuming that your goal in poker is to make the most

money. If your goal is to come fi rst more than your average share in

tournaments then your tactics may be slightly different.

There is a mathematical model called the Independent Chip Model (ICM) which

calculates how much a players current stack is worth at a given time in a

tournament. It produces your percentage share of the prize pool when

considering your stack and the amount of players left in the tournament. To help

you understand this Ill give you an example from a typical nine-handed sit-and-

go.

There is a sit-and-go with a standard payout structure of 50% for fi rst, 30% for

second and 20% for third and there are four players left. We will assume that the

four players have exactly the same stack size, and therefore their share in the

prizepool is equal to their share of the chip total.

Two players go all-in and one gets knocked out. Then on the next hand, one of

the smaller stacks goes all-in against the bigger stack and gets knocked out. The

respective ICM values are as follows in the table you can see on the right of the

page. When there are three players, the big stack has 50% share of the total chips

but its wrong to assume his stack is worth 50% of the prizepool on average,

because that assumes he will come fi rst every time.

It is true that the big stack will have more chance to come first than the small

stacks but the ICM attempts to give a more reasonable approximation of stack

worth. Obviously none of them will win exactly what the ICM %EV suggests, it

is just the average long term winnings they can expect to gain with that specific

stack. If you want to calculate stack worth in $EV you multiply the ICM stack

percentage by the total prize pool. For example: $100 prize pool * 25% ICM =

$25 stack worth.

The Meaning of ICM


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So what are the implications of this? As you can see from the table, when two

players go allin and one player gets knocked out the other two players not

involved in the action have had their stacks increase in value by 5.8% of the prize

pools. By sitting tight, they have won money. In cash games, you have to play to

win money.

Another thing to note is the player who doubled his stack has only gained an

extra 13.3% of EV, so by going allin he risked 25% of his EV to gain 13.3% EV.

This can create some strange dynamics where players should fold hands as good

as AK even if it is +ChipEV to play it! Say you are in the late stages of a

sitandgo with a payout structure 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

There are three players left so you are already in the money. The blinds are now

50/100. The big stack of 2,000 chips goes allin on the button and the small blind

calls for 1,001 chips. You have 1,000 chips and you have AKo in the big blind.

You know that the button is shoving 100% of hands here and you know that

small blind is calling 9.5% of hands (A9s+, ATo+ & 66+). If you call you will

win a pot of 3,000 about 38% of the time and you will lose your stack 62% of the

time. So doing an ChipEV calculation: You call & win: (1,000+1,000+100) *

38% = 798. You call and you lose: (900) * 62% = 558. So 798 558 = 240. As a

fold is 0 EV, and 240>0 you should call if not considering ICM.

You can expect to increase your stack by 240 chips, so in a cash game you would

snap call. However, ChipEV doesnt take into the cash value of your tournament

stack in $EV so lets do an ICM calculation now. You currently have 28.33% of

ICM%EV. If you lose your stack you have 0%ICM EV and if you win the pot

you now have an ICM EV% of 37.5%. You lose 62% and win 38% so 62% * 0%

+ 37.5% * 38% = 14.25%.

By calling you have just lost 28.33% 14.25% = 14.08% of the prize pool. If the

prize pool is $100, you have just lost $14.08 on average by making that call. You

should fold the AK if you are basing your plays off the ICM model.

The Reality Of ICM

So, say you are disciplined and competent enough to fold the AK and then the

small blind flips over AQ, the button fl ips over A2 and the board comesA375K.


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You hate yourself because you just folded when you would have won if you

called. If you think like this you are destined for misery with poker. If you want

to be one of the best, you should just shrug, laugh and say to yourself: Oh well, I

made the correct fold in the long run.

The underlying ICM dynamic becomes very important in the later stages of a

tournament, but the further away the tournament is from the payout positions, the

less implication ICM should have on ones decision making. Early in a

tournament, ICM has no impact at all and therefore the game play should be

similar to a cash game.

ICM requires too many calculations to run on more than 10 players, so when

playing in an MTT, it is difficult to know at what point you should start to

consider ICM factors. Some say it only needs consideration when you reach the

final table, but I think this is incorrect. It is hard to say exactly when, but I think

you should defi nitely be tighter the closer you get to the bubble.

Because of the implications of ICM, a contrasting theory in MTTs, is that one

should play more aggressively around the bubble because everyone else should

be tightening up. This is especially true if you have a large enough stack that you

will not be knocked out if you lose an all-in and therefore the bigger stacks

become very powerful in these positions.

You should open and three-bet much wider ranges and in theory you should get

many more folds. Say you are on the bubble and you have the big stack of 3,000

chips and the three other players at your table have 1,000 chips each. Lets say

the big blind is 100 chips, so the short stacks have 10BB each. If the other three

players are competent and therefore tightening up, then you can min-raise every

unopened pot and you should win the blinds.

If the players are fishier and like to call min-raises a lot then you can usually

continuation bet half the pot to take it down. Please be wary that if you are

opening 100% then you are definitely folding to three-bets too much. When

competent players realise this, they will three-bet all-in against you quite a lot,

even on the bubble, and therefore your 100% min-raising becomes unprofitable.

In more competent games where your opponents have less than 10BBs, open

shipping all-in is better. In this scenario, you can open ship 100% of hands from


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the button and 50% of hands from the cutoff. When trying these tactics it will

result in two scenarios: you get called by a good hand and drop your stack down

to 2,000 at which point you should start playing your usual game again, or you

will suck out and have 4,000 and can continue your shipping all-in tactics.

Usually before a call happens you will have decimated the other stacks so much

that it should be a victory on average from here on.

Sizing Up

Another important thing to consider in tournaments is stack sizes. When blinds

are small relative to stacks (stacks of 100 big blinds or more) the game play will

be mostly postflop. But as blinds increase and stacks become relatively smaller

in relation to the blinds (12-40 big blind stacks) the game play becomes much

more of a preflop game.

Relative to 100BB cash games, you will see wider value three-bet ranges and

consequently wider three-bet calling ranges (with 7-7+, A-Ts+, A-Jo+ as

standard) because of the smaller stacks. The smaller stacks will lead to a game

which has less opening, less calling prefl op, more threebetting and less folding

to three-bets.

Tournament play is much more dynamic than cash game play for all of the abovereasons. This can be very confusing for the specialised cash game player, who is

used to opening a lot and playing a certain way with 100 big blinds. Cash game

players will tend to open too much and call three-bets tighter than is optimal.

On the opposite side of the coin, because of a lack of postflop experience

tournament players will struggle in the deeper postflop cash games. That is why

there are not many players whom are successful long term in both variants. The

modern day 40BB short stackers come closest to being competent at both games,but I know of none who crush tournaments and cash games.

Some say cash games are more skilled because of the deeper stacks, and to a

certain extent it is true that deeper stacks mean more decision making options

and therefore more complications, whereas smaller stacks can often lead to a

perfect mathematical solution (going all-in), which in essence is much simpler to

execute and understand. But still, any cash game player that disrespects a tourney

pro simply doesnt fully understand the complexities of tournament play.

SECRET MOVES REVEALED: PART 1


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AUGUST 2012

Need to add a little extra something to your tournament game? PokerPlayer

reveals the moves the pros dont want you to pull

Often you can follow the strategy advice from books and websites yet still find it

hard to regularly make deep runs. Are you just running bad or could it be youre

missing out on something? Perhaps the straightforward poker lessons are failing

you, leaving you scratching your head as others twist and turn when it really

matters?

Dont get us wrong, standard strategy works best for most situations butknowing

when to adapt, when to get tricky or simply overplay your hand can make the

difference between anothermin-cash and a final table.

In poker its almost impossible to talk about absolutes, beyondPhil

Hellmuthalways believing his own hype, so why should strategy be any different?

Lets take a look at three ways you can veer from standard play to really turn the

tournament tide in the first part of ourSecret Move Strategy Series.

1. Limping with Aces

You raise with Aces, right? Of course you do. You raise for value, to take

advantage of an aggressive image and to ensure that drawing hands pay more to hit

their gin flop. Well, doing that early in a tournament is pretty difficult. When the

blinds are 25/50 and the average stack is a smidge over 10k its pretty difficult to

drum up much value unless an opponent happens to have Kings.

So what are you going to do with your pocket rockets, particularly if you are in

early-ish position? Try a limp. If you dont pick up a raise from a genuine hand or

someone just trying to swipe a limped pot, then you go to the flop with huge

implied odds.

If you bink an Ace youll likely have flopped the nuts and can extract value from

your heavily disguised hand. If you dont flop an Ace then you can play your hand

as a cautious overpair. But thats not the reason we suggest you should be limping

here.

If someone limps in and you both flop a set theres very little chance you wont

take it all, but thats going to happen infrequently. Its early on so there will still be


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plenty of weak players left in the field and should someone telegraph strength

preflop with a raise its highly unlikely that theyll leave the hand to a limp-reraise.

Make it big, get the action heads-up in a grossly inflated pot and try to get it in on

the flop.

How to do it: You limp for 50 as do two other players and a player with pocket

Tens bumps it up to around 250. The blinds pass and you come back over the top

for 1,000. The limpers now pass and the player with pocket Tens umms-andahhs

before finally making the call. If you then pile into the flop youll frequently get

jammed on by a hand youre crushing that may have passed to four-bet preflop or,

at the very least, may have shut down when he saw a King or Queen on the flop.

Dont be a fish: If stack sizes are still deep postflop then dont be a clown and

blindly punt your stack off. Be wary of draw-heavy flops or those with multiple

court cards on them.

2. The donk bet

The donk bet has had some bad press in the past, and for good reason. A donk bet

is when youve been the passive player out of position and then lead into the flop,

for example when you call a raise preflop and then bet out first to act on the flop.

Most players in this situation are going to c-bet the majority of the hands that they

raise with preflop so by leading with what you think is the winning hand youll

simply make most players fold before donating a c-bet to you. Hence the term

donk bet.

So donk betting is for donks then? Well, perhaps not. Team PokerStars pro Jude

j.thaddeus Ainsworth is one of the most successful tournament players around

and he loves leading into opponents. Why? Its a great way to inflate a pot without

setting the alarm bells off in the same way as the check-raise or losing value when

you trap check-call on the flop and your opponent checks behind on the turn and

river. The donk bet is widely recognised as being weak, so who would play two-

pair or a large combodraw that way? Usually no-one, but should you find yourself

up against a player who really doesnt like to fold then leading may buy you more

action.

How to do it: If youre facing a livewire who is willing to call with any part of the

flop, backdoor draws or simply to float then this is your time to donk bet. If theyre

a frequent floater look to check-raise them on the turn for value. If theyre in the


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passive school of not paying attention to the size of bets, and rather see a pile of

chips as a pile of chips, then keep doing the betting for them.

Checking in these spots is to allow the other player to do the betting for you. If you

think theyre not going to oblige and are more likely to check behind with marginal

hands then why not take a stab? Remember, there are no hard and fast rules in

poker.

Dont be a fish: Dont go donking into the ABC player. Theyll look at their King-

Ten and the Jack flop and fold. Pull this move on the loose players that dont want

to pass.

3. Incorrectly calling three-bets

The stop-and-go is so last decade you probably dont even remember what it was.

Someone would raise and youd call out of position, largely in the big blind, and

then shove whatever was left of your stack into the middle no matter what the flop

was. It was far more effective in those more innocent years when players over-

estimated their fold equity, under-appreciated pot odds and assumed that no-one

would shove with anything less than top pair.

These days players underestimate fold equity, put far too much faith in pot odds

despite not being able to calculate them and think that their opponents will shove

with anything.

This can work to your advantage, particularly when your opponent is a loose

player, or has a big stack. This is not a great technique to use against similarly

stacked players as the shove will endanger too many of their own precious chips

making them unlikely to call with weaker hands and losing you value. Against

players with a similar stack youre better off either check-raising into them or

calling a shove. Remember, try not to get too carried away with these techniques

and always apply them in addition to a solid tournament strategy.

How to do it: Rather than making that three-bet shove all-in with a premium hand,

which is likely to fold out a large chunk of the bullys range, call the raise and jam

the flop. Yes, youll occasionally make hands fold that may have called you all-in

preflop but more frequently youll get looked up by hands that would have passed

preflop but have now caught something. The shove will often confuse players,

particularly on drawing flops, and get you looked up by any pair.


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Dont be a fish: Remember the tournament equity attached to your stack. This is

not the kind of move for you to pull off near the bubble where you should be

leveraging your fold equity when you can. Use it to chip up when the money jumps

arent significant or the bubble is still some way off.

That's it for part 1, but don't forget to check PokerPlayer.co.uk next week for the

second part in this series.

SECRET MOVES REVEALED: PART 2

AUGUST 2012

Need to add a little extra something to your tournament game? PokerPlayer

reveals the moves the pros dont want you to pullOften you can follow the strategy advice from books and websites yet still find it

hard to regularly make deep runs. Are you just running bad or could it be youre

missing out on something? Perhaps the straightforward poker lessons are failing

you, leaving you scratching your head as others twist and turn when it really

matters?

Dont get us wrong, standard strategy works best for most situations but knowing

when to adapt, when to get tricky or simply overplay your hand can make thedifference between anothermin-cash and a final table.

In poker its almost impossible to talk about absolutes, beyondPhil

Hellmuth always believing his own hype, so why should strategy be any different?

Lets take a look at three ways you can veer from standard play to really turn the

tournament tide in the second part of ourSecret Move Strategy Series.

4. The min-bet

Youve all seen it online. Theres 850 in the pot and some joker bets 100 into it.

What is the point? Well, because it sometimes seems to work. Were certainly not

advocating you take this on as a frequent tournament policy but if youre wanting

to see the turn in a hand where youre lacking much equity, a gutshot perhaps, then

a min-bet can sometimes be enough to throw your opponent off from making a

continuation bet allowing you to see if you hit your hand for (pretty much) free. It

will very infrequently make someone that would have checked back suddenlyraise, certainly at the lower levels anyway.


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How to do it: Use this tricky one sparingly. When youre holding a hand with only

a few out, try stabbing at the pot with a minimum bet. If you get raised then you

can simply release your hand.

Dont be a donk: Dont let yourself min-bet then make a bad call when your

opponent raises it up to three-quarters pot. It looks like a fishy move, and it is a

fishy move, but very occasionally it can work.

5. The call to induce the squeeze

Youll have read in the hallowed pages of PokerPlayer many times before that

slow-playing a big hand because youre worried about scaring off opponents is a

case of fishy thinking, and rightfully so. However, occasionally disguising your

hand can get you paid off. If you have aggressive players to your left you can use

their aggression against them by inducing a squeeze by flat-calling with a premium

hand.

The same can work if youre shorter but with a playable stack of around 30 big

blinds. An open to 400, a min-raise at the 100/200 level, would leave the pot with

7.5 big blinds after youd called and a squeeze might make that closer to 14 big

blinds which would allow you to come back over the top with what would look

like a small pair.

How to do it: You hold a hand, such as A-Qs, and there has already been a call of

the initial raise. A decent player with a stack of around 20BBs will see all those

dead chips in the middle, and think theyve only got the open raiser to get past to

scoop the pot. Not so, you and your monster lay in wait.

Dont be a fish: Dont get locked into your hand postflop if no-one bites.

6. Raise-folding with equity

At this years WSOP Neil Badbeat Channing came close to winning his first

bracelet but couldnt quite cross that final hurdle despite having the opposite

number, Henry Lu, down to a five-toone chip deficit twice. Channing ground Lu

down but the big showdowns just didnt go his way. A move Channing adopted a

few times was a three-bet preflop which didnt set his opponent in but didnt look

like hed pass to a shove.


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Rather than setting his opponent all-in he polarised his opponents hand and kept

the pressure on him. If you think your opponent isnt going to four-bet shove light

and you think theres little difference between their four-bet shoving and their

three-bet calling ranges then it can make sense to keep it small ball when heads-up.

How to do it: This works best heads-up. Dont be afraid to three-bet bluff and fold

if your opponent shoves. They might think you have to call based on pot odds,

but you dont.

Dont be a fish: Look at the stack sizes before you start thinking about raise-

folding. If youre getting two-to-one DO NOT FOLD.

If you missed part 1 of this strategy series click here.

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5 Big Tournament Leaks