PokerWorks

As poker players, we would all love to play in tournaments where the average chip stack is greater than 40 times the big blind. Unless you are able to fork out $10,000 or are lucky enough to find a casino that actually caters to poker players, chances are you are going to have problems finding a tournament that will provide this.

Casino's... and even Internet poker rooms... are in the business of making money. Tournaments typically aren't money makers for them... their goal is to get the tournament player out of the tournament and into the cash games where they are collecting a rake. In order to do this, they create structures that move the tournament along at a breakneck pace. For many players, playing in these types of tournaments is a struggle because they are used to having the luxury of patience.

Covering the 2008 World Poker Open, I continuously watched this struggle. Most of the players playing in these events do not know how to make the proper adjustments necessary to be successful in these shallow money tournaments. Since these are the types of tournaments I mainly play, and have had some success at this level, I know a little bit about making these adjustments. This article is going to provide some considerations a player should take into account when playing these events and things you can do to help counter the various problems that often arise.

#1 Tight is not right. Because of the length of the rounds, you aren't going to be dealt as many hands before the blinds go up. In a typical 30 minute level you will see 10-15 hands. Sure you might have 40 big blinds now but in 15 minutes you'll only have 20. If you're sitting back waiting for hands, you're going to find yourself running out of chips sooner rather than later.

The key to dealing with this problem is to play more hands in the first 1-2 levels than you normally would. At these levels, your stack should be deep enough to where you can see numerous flops without risking a substantial portion of your stack.

Let's use the $300+40 World Poker Open NLHE tournament structure. In that tournament you start with 2500 in chips and the blinds at 25-25. In 40 minutes they go up to 25-50. Let's say you are dealt 20 hands in 40 minutes (a high number). You could limp in each hand and only have risked 20% of your stack. Obviously you aren't going to limp in every hand (and don't want to), but the point is made... you can afford to with more hands. At the next level, 20 limps will cost you 40% of your stack. A bit pricier but you're still at a level where you can do so.

The same principle applies to calling raises and making re-raises. You can do more of them for a smaller percentage of your stack than at any other time in the tournament. If you're going to make moves, now is the time to do them because you can do so without putting your entire stack at risk.

Despite my suggestion that you play looser... there is a right way and wrong way to do it. Don't be calling raises and re-raises out of position with hands that don't play well in those situations. I'm talking about dominated hands like K-J or Q-10. In a raised pot you want to have a hand that will either be better than the hand making the initial raise, or one that has implied value to stack your opponent (like a small to medium pair or suited connectors), if you hit a good flop at low cost. Use position to its maximum advantage.

#2 early on passive is better than aggressive. This is a contradiction to most of the literature that is out there so hear me out. The problem with aggressive play in these tournaments is it builds big pots and forces you to commit yourself to one hand instead of giving yourself the opportunity to accumulate chips in multiple hands.

Here is an example using the 2008 WPO $300+40 structure. Let's say you have pocket tens with the blinds at 25/25 and a player has raised to 100. You re-raise to 350 and are called. The flop comes 9 high and your opponent checks to you. There is 750 in the pot so you make a standard 2/3 pot bet of 500. Your opponent moves all in. You've now put in 850 of your starting 2500 in chips and are facing a tough situation for all of your chips.

If you had taken a passive approach of just calling the pre-flop raise and making the same 2/3 pot bet into the 250 pot, you would only be out 275 chips or 10% of your stack. I'm not saying to always be passive, and later in the tournament the opposite approach (as I will discuss later) is often correct. Try and keep the pots small though so you can maximize the opportunities you have to accumulate chips. The more pots you can play, the better chance you will have to do so.

#3 – embrace the fish. You sit down at your opening table and someone raises or re-raises the first five hands. One time a person re-raises and he moves all in causing the re-raiser to fold. The bully proudly shows 6-9 off. You're thinking to yourself “If I get aces, kings, or queens I'm going to bust this guy.” But you never get the magical hand and two other players end up distributing all of those pretty chips between themselves.

This is a common misconception for many players. They think in order to take on loose or overly aggressive players that they need to wait for a hand. Nothing could be further from the truth. This player is the walking definition of implied value. If they have raised a pot and you can safely see the flop with them, without another player making it too expensive, you should do so at every opportunity. This is going to be the player that pays you off when you have top pair and they decide to bluff their gutshot straight draw. Why let someone else get the bad players chips? Go get them for yourself. The only way you're going to do this is to play some hands with the person.

#4 – Throw the survival concept out the window. It is true you can't win a tournament if you're out of it, but you usually can't win a tournament when the only move you have is all in. In these tournaments, you have to be willing to go broke. If you have that double draw (flush and straight draw), don't call off your chips... push them in and make your opponent call. If you know you have a race and think that winning the pot will put you in a better position to win... start running!

Too many people fold hands because they know if they go broke, they will be out of the tournament. The problem with this is they are going to be out of the tournament if they fold these hands too often in the first place. If winning a hand will put you in a better position to make it deep, and you believe the chances are good that you can win the hand (and here is where your observation and player reading skills will come into play), then go for it. I think it was Greg Raymer who said “you can't win a tournament making big folds.”

#5 – the bubble starts sooner than you think. $200... $300... $500... whatever they spent to play in the tournament is a significant amount of money for them and it's important to them that they at least get their money back. It is because of this that the bubble starts much sooner than you might think. It doesn't start when you are 2 or 3 spots from the money. It's usually closer to when you are 2 or 3 tables from the money. Watch the next time you play a live tournament and you will see people start looking around when it gets to that point. They can taste the money and if they have any kind of a stack they aren't going to jeopardize that unless they have a real hand. This is when you need to start opening up and raising these players as much as you humanly can.

#6 – Understand the math. I talked about this in-depth in “Can you overvalue the math”. Knowing how to approach tournament situations that come up due to the mathematical price or odds you are being given, is crucial to success. Read the article for more insight.

#7 – Let's make a deal. Because these tournaments often turn into crapshoots at the end it is advantageous to seek out a deal when the opportunity arises. I'm going to write an article on this in the future, but encourage deals if they are there for the taking. At the same time, however, don't make a deal if you think you are giving up EV in doing so. Some deals are bad. If you're unsure of what to do, ask a friend or player who is neutral to the tournament and more experienced in making deals.

There is more to a shallow money tournament obviously, but if you take these ideas into consideration, I believe you will find yourself getting better results.