Chipping up in the early stages of a tournament is not a matter of gambling with coin-flips but pushing bigger edges and taking advantage of poor players.
There is no better feeing in poker than having a massive stack sitting in front of you.your opponents fear you. every action at the table comes through you. they hesitate before each raise because they know that if you come over the top of them they will have to lay down all but the very best of hands. the power of the big-stack is awesome, but there's one small problem. not many people ever get to be the big-stack.
The majority of the people that chip up heavily in early play do so through maniacal aggression and luck. seldom does a player get there through skill, but it does happen. players like gus hanson, dnaiel negreanu, and phil
ivey are masters at accumulating chips early in a tournament and putting themselves in a geat position to go deep. however, do you have to build a big stack in order to be successful at tournament poker? this article is going to try and answer that question for you.
building a big stack
A common misconception i often hear ia that a player should be willing to take small edges early in a tournament in order to build a stack. the term small edge is used much too loosely, especially in the online arena where if a player is eliminated they can just move on to the next tournament. these players are more then happy to put all their chips in pre-flop in a race situation because they are looking to double up their chip stack. but is this the necessarily the correct play?.
Let's look at a typical hand that gets played alot in these situations. Our hero is delt A,K with the blinds at 10/20 and has 1500 in chips. He opens the action for 60 and re-raised by a player for 250. For the sake of this duscussion, let's agree that our hero will win this hand 50% the time and be elimnated 50% the time. is it worth busting out half the time to double your chip stack early in a tournament?.i'd say no and here's why.
Having double a chip stack early in a tournament, whilst nice, does not guarantee a win, or even cashing for that matter. Being eliminated from the tournament, however does guarantee not making a penny. All you are gaining at that point is more chips. granted, the double up will put the player in a better position to make the money or win the tournament but over the long run, i think this play is incorrect.
key point
small edges are overrated in the early stages of a tournament. you should look to avoid coin flips or even 60/40 shots in the first few levels.
seeking coin flips
i'll use a hypothical situation to show why actively seeking coin-flip style oppourtunitie in the early stages of a tournament is a bad idea. let's assume that if our hero doubles up in the first two rounds that he will make the money 35% of the time as opposed to 25% if he just maintains hs stack. these are fairly realsitic expectations in my experience. using these numbers we come up with the following:
pushes the coin flip
50% of the time elimnated
50% of the time doubles up and 35% of those times makes the money = 17.5% of the time makes the money
doesn't push the coin flip
25% of the time makes the money
in this example, the player that doesn't take the coin flip will make the money 7.5% more. proponents of taking the coin-flip will argue that when they do make the money, with double the chips, they will often make more of it. there is some merit in that arguement, but in the ealy stage of the tournament, doubling up tends to lose value as opposed to the middle and late stages.
If you're putting all your chips in pre-flop in these situations, you might as well go down to your local casion and put down your tournament entry fee on red or black at the roulette wheel, because essentially that is exactly what you are doing. you're gambling nothing more nothing less.
The better approach would be to take calculated risks to increase your chip stack that don't require you to put in all your chips pre-flop. there is a good reason poker players are always talking about implied odds with such reverence. When understood and applied corectly, playing for the maximum implied value is hughly powerfull tool in any poker player's aresnal. and when is the implied value of virtually any poker hand as it's greatest? it is early in the tournament. when else can you risk just three or four big blinds and end up winning 75?
key point
implied odds are your best friend in the early levels of a tournament. try and play raised multi-way pots with small pairs and suited connectors at this stage
calculated risks
implied value always decreases in the middle to late stages of a tournament due to the increasing blinds in relation to stack sizes. An average stack at the beginning of the tournament will usually be 75-100 big blinds. in the middle to late stages of a tournament, it will often be in the 15-25 big blind range. meaning there is little to no implied value.
There is the approach that small ball specialists like negreanu like to take. they take risks, but they are calculated risks. calling a raise with 8-7 suited is the kind of risk they will make, not pushing all-in pre-flop with A-K. this is a much better approach because you have alot more information available to you after the flop, and the probability of winning or losing the hand is more defined.
F or example, say you have pocket eights and an early position player has raised. you have him on two big cards and figure it to be a race. rather thenpush and take the 50/50 proposition you decide to just call and see the flop. the flop comes A-10-3 and your opponent bets pot and you fold. instead of busting out you have lost a small percentage of your stack and can live on to play another day.
If the flop came A -8-3, you would have doubled up without having to risk your entire stack pre-flop. the best poker players succeed because they make better decisions then their opponents. when you move all-in pre-flop you are eliminating any decision making from your game.
key point
In the middle stages of a tournament try to avoid taking obvious 50/50 shots and don't be afraid to keep the pot small by calling and seeing a flop.
i will continue this in my next blog
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19 comments
thank you
At least you're thinking about approaches to tournaments, but you're missing some "key points"
Blind level times and Starting Chips should guide your tournament strategy based on your skill.
1500 chips with 10/20 starting blinds gives you 75BBs to work with. 1500 with 15/30 gives you 50bbs to work with. 3000 with 15/30 gives you 100bbs to work with.
Am i approaching these tournaments in the same way? Absolutely Not! I will take the small edges in the 1500 15/30 to get myself to a workable chipstack. These types of tournaments have speedy blind levels and you cannot wait for premium cards, you must take the edges so you can play poker. The double up allows you to make information bets, continuation bluffs and raise any weak limper to pot commit them.
With 100bbs deepstack, you're going to have to be able to play good poker in the beginning and not take the risks, you don't need to. You have to outplay other skilled players who seek these tournaments out.
Chips are power and in a tournament where everyone is weak in chips, I'll take the early risks to take that bigger edge that more chips give you.
so you are telling me you would shove all-in pre-flop even though the basic math i put out says that taking the coin-flip will lose money in the long run.
most the things you have commented about you can do by using your starting stack you dont have to double up.
Great post CJ and very informative.
ty for the info!!!!
Rock on my Favorite Lizard!
I agree with what you are saying here. However, I do have one question. You make some assumptions when you say that the hero will make the money 35% of the time if he doubles up early and will make the money 25% of the time if he just maintains his stack.
Most of the tourneys I go deep are tourneys where I end up in a situation where I am forced to push with a short stack at least once. Opponents tend to lack respect for the big stacks in the early stages of a tourney when the blinds are still small. However, when the blinds are escalated, and one reraise will put a player all in, the big stack gets much more respect. Therefore, I see very little advantage to doubling up early against average players. With a high M (in the green zone), chances are high that I will see better than a 55/45 shot at some point before my M gets to the red zone.
Now, if I'm in a tourney with exceptional players at my table, I might be more prone to take a few risks early on.
i said if he makes the money 17.5% the time
it is better to maintain the stack which equals 25%
Small ball is the strategy for deep stack tournament with long blind levels. It's a skill strategy that IS risky because you're entering a lot of pots behind.
You need a stack to play small ball, thus entering deep stack tournaments, which usually have higher buyins and longer blinds, i.e.., better players is where that strategy comes into play.
Short stack, quick blind levels requires a lot more aggression and risk to attain a stack where you can use more skills that you have to outplay your opponents.
as we both know ak aq is a dog to everypair and a big dog to qq jj and such so why take the 60/40 when you are behind when you can call see the flop and then go from there
cj wrote: this does not mean play small ball but keeping the pot small instead of re-raising and risking your tourny life on a race when the math says that in the long run the early double up wont help.
you've just described small ball. Please, don't get me wrong, your thesis on tournament strategy is well thought out. Get away from races, period, if you have to. Fold AK to a lot of pre-flop aggression.
There is so much more to it than governing your play solely on your cards and math.
In fact I challenge you to enter a $2 / 9 player SNG and cover your hole cards with a small piece of cardboard on your screen so you're not playing your cards, but the situation. When you're not focused on your cards, you're focused on the table. You'll eventually learn to play position instead of your cards, which will gain you more chips than you'd ever imagine in a tournament. Then when you have chips, you can play more cards out of position AND take the 50/50 when you have opponents outchipped 3-4:1.
Changing gears all the way through a tournament is a skill that requires one thing.
Chips. Anyway you can get them early in a short stacked, fast blind event, is the only way to survive.. not folding and waiting for cards that just don't come.
when i mean calling a pre-flop raise there are different amounts a typical pre-flop raise in a 15/30 level is 105 so instead of re-raiseing why not call that bet instead because we both know that most players will race with most pairs.