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In part one of this series we focused on how to manage and build your stack in the early stages of a multi-table poker tournament, focusing on the re-buy period for tournaments that allow this. This week we are going to look at approaches and strategies for playing a MTT in the early phases of a freezeout tournament. This can also include the period after the re-buy ends for those types of tournaments, as well as pure freezeout tournaments. At this point, your stack is now your lifeline in the tournament – you can’t continue without a chip and a chair as the saying goes, so what do you need to think about to increase the number of chips you have, and potentially avoid losing the ones you’ve accumulated?
Knowing Where You Stand Against the Field
There are two pieces of information that are most important to note at this stage of the game so you can set the bar needed to secure a cash:
How Tournament Structure Should Affect Your Playing Style (Let me know if this heading is good. I had originally put "How to determine chips in play and average stack". I also moved the bottom two paragraphs up and restructured this a bit. Let me know what you think. If you hate it, we can always revert it to a past history point.)
It’s noted that the average live poker hand lasts up to 2 mins, including dealing, paying the antes and for the action to proceed. In our tournament, this means we should expect to pay the blinds once a level, maybe twice depending on the speed. If we don’t play a hand in the first two levels – approximately 20 hands – we can expect our stack to be 19,100. But because the blinds have risen twice, we now only have 32BB (31.8BB to be exact). By playing 20 hands, we have gone from being deep stacked to being close to being short.
Why do we cover this? It’s vital to understand how a tournament set-up is going to affect your stack and your ability to play pots – clearly in this tournament format, if you sit back and wait for a bigger hand you are going to dig yourself a hole that you may not realize – so you have to be prepared to make adjustments more than you may have realized by being more aggressive, playing for more pots, and defending your blinds. A lot of poker players don’t take the few minutes to analyze the structure and plan for these crucial early levels.
Here's an example.
Let’s assume that either at the end of the re-buy period, or at the beginning of the freezeout tournament there are 100 entries with a starting chip stack of 20,000 chips. 15 players will be paid a min cash of 1.5X the buy-in. Leaving out rebuys you can determine the following:
It’s impossible to know exactly when the money bubble is going to burst, but one can definitely predict what the play is going to be like at certain points based on chips in play, average stacks, and blind levels. Using the information above, let's assume that blinds go up every 30 mins starting at 100 / 200 (100BB) and the structure of the first 10 levels is as shown below:
Level 1: 100 / 200
Level 2: 200 / 400
Level 3: 300 / 600
Level 4: 400 / 800
Level 5: 500 / 1000
Level 6: 750 / 1500
Level 7: 1000 / 2000
Level 8: 1250 / 2500
Level 9: 1500 / 3000
Level 10: 2000 / 4000
Level 10 of this tournament with a 4000 big blind means that there will only be 500 big blinds in play (2 million chips in play/4000 big blind = 500 big blinds). It’s not a stretch to think that this could be where the bubble bursts as 15 players would have an average of 25 big blinds at this point.
Conversely, if 15 players were left on level 6 of this tournament would feel early as they would still have an average stack of 88 big blinds. But let's say the 13th level had blinds of 5000 and 10000: with only 200 big blinds in play at this level, it’s not likely that the bubble would last until now as that would mean the average stack has only 13.3 BB with the 15 players cashing.
Understanding how the structure is going to affect your play and planning for this should influence your decision making process and provide a guess as to what you will need to have in your stack to make the money.
So now that you make mental notes on how to adjust your play, how do you manage this? Couple of things you should consider:
How to Avoid Disaster
The worst thing that can happen to you playing a tournament in the early stages is making a mistake that costs you most or all your stack. This lesson is not going to advocate for you playing a certain way, but we will uncover some challenges that poker players create for themselves
Passive Play
This isn’t a secret to most poker players that passive play can kill your stack in general, but this becomes doubly important in a freezeout MTT, or post rebuy period where you cannot buy back into the game. Be aware of how much runway you have: how large your stack is relative to the effective stack at your table, how many blinds you have, and how close to the average stack you are in the tournament overall.
The deeper you are the more speculative you can be, but be very aware of calling hands out of position pre-flop; the worst situation you can put yourself in is to defend your big blind wide, miss the flop and be pushed off the hand post flop. Instead of losing the 1 BB you end up losing 2 or more BB. This might be fine if you are 50BB+ deep, but if you aren’t it is a greater percentage of your stack that was called away. Consider this:
These are numbers that can be overlooked sometimes in a poker tournament, especially playing live when this calculation is next to impossible to get real time. However, not paying attention to the difference between the average stack at your table and the average stack overall could lead your plan at the table to be incorrect for the stage you are in.
Let’s say that you entered a 100-person poker tournament, starting with 20k in chips, playing nine handed, where 45 players remain and 15 will cash.
So the average poker stack right now is (2 million chips in play) / 45 players left = 44,444
This means that the average table will have 44,444 X 9 players = 400,000 chips on it
If you are on a table that has half of the average chips at a table, and your stack is 25,000, you may think that you are in a good spot. You are above the table average of 22,222 chips but way below the tournament average. If the blinds at this moment reflect the average stack, in theory the blinds could be 500 / 1000 or 600 / 1200 or something in that range where the average stack has 30 or 35BB. Since you are well below average, your stack could be below 20BB – but this means your entire table is going to be in this boat, escalating the play and resulting in far more all-ins. If you anticipate this before your table gets short, you can use this to your advantage by tightening up your range and forcing your opponents to play bigger pots for their tournament life and act like a bigger stack “bully” when you yourself aren’t a big stack.
Conversely, if the opposite is true and your table has an excess of chips relative to the average poker player or table, you can switch gears and slow down. Choosing to play pots with premium hands instead, knowing that the other tables are going to force eliminations while you move up makes more sense then trying to force the issue, knowing that there are big stacks at your table relative to the overall tournament.
By identifying when it’s advantageous to play aggressively, you’ll ensure that you can maintain your stack in a tournament when you need to and play slightly more cautiously when the situation doesn’t warrant the need to be aggressive. Knowing where you are at your table is just as important as knowing where you are in the overall tournament. If you don’t see your table adjusting when a gap exists, pivot your game and take advantage.
Playing A Big Stack – How it can be a curse
Being the table captain (having the biggest stack on the table) is a fantastic position to be in during a poker tournament. However you have to be careful as chip leaders have been known to give chips up relatively easily and find themselves as an average stack before they know it. So how should you adjust your play if you inherit a large stack?
The final section we'll speak to revolves around short stack tournaments and deep stack tournaments. Most of what we covered already applies to these but there are a couple of things you want to ensure you note.
Next week, we'll tackle part 3 where the money bubble comes into play and eventually bursts. How do you navigate that?? Stay tuned....
We hope you are enjoying our Thread Learning Series! Check out all our series, including our November Pot-Limit Omaha Series right here: CardsChat Learning Poker Thread Series Index
Knowing Where You Stand Against the Field
There are two pieces of information that are most important to note at this stage of the game so you can set the bar needed to secure a cash:
- How many chips are in play
- How many places are getting paid
How Tournament Structure Should Affect Your Playing Style (Let me know if this heading is good. I had originally put "How to determine chips in play and average stack". I also moved the bottom two paragraphs up and restructured this a bit. Let me know what you think. If you hate it, we can always revert it to a past history point.)
It’s noted that the average live poker hand lasts up to 2 mins, including dealing, paying the antes and for the action to proceed. In our tournament, this means we should expect to pay the blinds once a level, maybe twice depending on the speed. If we don’t play a hand in the first two levels – approximately 20 hands – we can expect our stack to be 19,100. But because the blinds have risen twice, we now only have 32BB (31.8BB to be exact). By playing 20 hands, we have gone from being deep stacked to being close to being short.
Why do we cover this? It’s vital to understand how a tournament set-up is going to affect your stack and your ability to play pots – clearly in this tournament format, if you sit back and wait for a bigger hand you are going to dig yourself a hole that you may not realize – so you have to be prepared to make adjustments more than you may have realized by being more aggressive, playing for more pots, and defending your blinds. A lot of poker players don’t take the few minutes to analyze the structure and plan for these crucial early levels.
Here's an example.
Let’s assume that either at the end of the re-buy period, or at the beginning of the freezeout tournament there are 100 entries with a starting chip stack of 20,000 chips. 15 players will be paid a min cash of 1.5X the buy-in. Leaving out rebuys you can determine the following:
- There are 2 million poker chips in play (100 entries x 20,000 starting stack)
(For re-buys, multiple the # of re-buys x the re-buy stack and add to this total) - The average chip stack of those who cash is 133,333 – roughly 6 ½ times starting stack
It’s impossible to know exactly when the money bubble is going to burst, but one can definitely predict what the play is going to be like at certain points based on chips in play, average stacks, and blind levels. Using the information above, let's assume that blinds go up every 30 mins starting at 100 / 200 (100BB) and the structure of the first 10 levels is as shown below:
Level 1: 100 / 200
Level 2: 200 / 400
Level 3: 300 / 600
Level 4: 400 / 800
Level 5: 500 / 1000
Level 6: 750 / 1500
Level 7: 1000 / 2000
Level 8: 1250 / 2500
Level 9: 1500 / 3000
Level 10: 2000 / 4000
Level 10 of this tournament with a 4000 big blind means that there will only be 500 big blinds in play (2 million chips in play/4000 big blind = 500 big blinds). It’s not a stretch to think that this could be where the bubble bursts as 15 players would have an average of 25 big blinds at this point.
Conversely, if 15 players were left on level 6 of this tournament would feel early as they would still have an average stack of 88 big blinds. But let's say the 13th level had blinds of 5000 and 10000: with only 200 big blinds in play at this level, it’s not likely that the bubble would last until now as that would mean the average stack has only 13.3 BB with the 15 players cashing.
Understanding how the structure is going to affect your play and planning for this should influence your decision making process and provide a guess as to what you will need to have in your stack to make the money.
So now that you make mental notes on how to adjust your play, how do you manage this? Couple of things you should consider:
- Winning a small pot is better than losing a big pot.
- Ensure you are profiling the players at your table to understand where the aggressive players are, and where the more players passive players are. Target the passive players, avoid aggressive players.
- Aim to win at least one pot per orbit. If you win more, great but if you go multiple orbits without raking a pot you may need to change tactics especially in a turbo style tournament.
- Pick your spots to bluff carefully. Your story needs to make sense; otherwise, all you are going to do is flush chips down the toilet
- Don’t get married to premium hands post flop. Sure, pocket aces are super strong, but on a suited connected board, they could be vulnerable to being cracked.
- Remember: you have no lifelines available. Lose your chips, and you’re out.
How to Avoid Disaster
The worst thing that can happen to you playing a tournament in the early stages is making a mistake that costs you most or all your stack. This lesson is not going to advocate for you playing a certain way, but we will uncover some challenges that poker players create for themselves
Passive Play
This isn’t a secret to most poker players that passive play can kill your stack in general, but this becomes doubly important in a freezeout MTT, or post rebuy period where you cannot buy back into the game. Be aware of how much runway you have: how large your stack is relative to the effective stack at your table, how many blinds you have, and how close to the average stack you are in the tournament overall.
The deeper you are the more speculative you can be, but be very aware of calling hands out of position pre-flop; the worst situation you can put yourself in is to defend your big blind wide, miss the flop and be pushed off the hand post flop. Instead of losing the 1 BB you end up losing 2 or more BB. This might be fine if you are 50BB+ deep, but if you aren’t it is a greater percentage of your stack that was called away. Consider this:
- If you have 50BB and call a 2.5BB raise preflop and out of position with a hand like 67cc, and the flop is all red and all face cards, you just sent 5% of your stack to your opponent.
- If you are in the exact same hand but instead of 50BB, you have 25BB, this is now 5% of your stack done because you defended and folded pre-flop.
These are numbers that can be overlooked sometimes in a poker tournament, especially playing live when this calculation is next to impossible to get real time. However, not paying attention to the difference between the average stack at your table and the average stack overall could lead your plan at the table to be incorrect for the stage you are in.
Let’s say that you entered a 100-person poker tournament, starting with 20k in chips, playing nine handed, where 45 players remain and 15 will cash.
So the average poker stack right now is (2 million chips in play) / 45 players left = 44,444
This means that the average table will have 44,444 X 9 players = 400,000 chips on it
If you are on a table that has half of the average chips at a table, and your stack is 25,000, you may think that you are in a good spot. You are above the table average of 22,222 chips but way below the tournament average. If the blinds at this moment reflect the average stack, in theory the blinds could be 500 / 1000 or 600 / 1200 or something in that range where the average stack has 30 or 35BB. Since you are well below average, your stack could be below 20BB – but this means your entire table is going to be in this boat, escalating the play and resulting in far more all-ins. If you anticipate this before your table gets short, you can use this to your advantage by tightening up your range and forcing your opponents to play bigger pots for their tournament life and act like a bigger stack “bully” when you yourself aren’t a big stack.
Conversely, if the opposite is true and your table has an excess of chips relative to the average poker player or table, you can switch gears and slow down. Choosing to play pots with premium hands instead, knowing that the other tables are going to force eliminations while you move up makes more sense then trying to force the issue, knowing that there are big stacks at your table relative to the overall tournament.
By identifying when it’s advantageous to play aggressively, you’ll ensure that you can maintain your stack in a tournament when you need to and play slightly more cautiously when the situation doesn’t warrant the need to be aggressive. Knowing where you are at your table is just as important as knowing where you are in the overall tournament. If you don’t see your table adjusting when a gap exists, pivot your game and take advantage.
Playing A Big Stack – How it can be a curse
Being the table captain (having the biggest stack on the table) is a fantastic position to be in during a poker tournament. However you have to be careful as chip leaders have been known to give chips up relatively easily and find themselves as an average stack before they know it. So how should you adjust your play if you inherit a large stack?
- Know what type of player you are up against, and beware the short stack. Short stacks will be wary of losing more and getting knocked out, but very short stacks are going to be looking for ways to double-up and will know that you have chips to burn. Don't feel pressure to throw your weight around against the shortest stacks - the risk might be minimal but all it takes is a few double-ups and you are no longer even an average stack in the tournament.
- Apply pressure selectively. Putting pressure on is key but selective pressure is the way to go. Should you decide to open more, your range is going to naturally increase and players at your table will note this. By keeping to a range that makes sense for the point in the tournament you are at - keeping in mind where you are relative to the average stack, you should avoid getting into massive pots and potentially bleeding chips off.
- Target the average to above average stacks. If you can, play pots against average to above average stacks. They will be fully aware that you can hurt them severely - even knock them out, and may tighten up against the table captain. Use that to your advantage and target stacks not at risk - they are more likely to avoid confrontation and give up hands pre-flop, earning you blinds. Again - winning small pots is better than losing big pots!
The final section we'll speak to revolves around short stack tournaments and deep stack tournaments. Most of what we covered already applies to these but there are a couple of things you want to ensure you note.
- Short stack MTT's will typically see the elimination rate increase through the mid stages of the tournament, not yet at the bubble as players are going to become shorter stacked more quickly. Should you also become short stack, try and target players who are going to be less likely to get into an all-in pot with you: the bigger stacks. If they are recognizing that the eliminations are happening more quickly than expected and they have above-average stacks, they may be less inclined to put you at risk. Short stacks at the table however will be more likely to call as they too are in the same position, so getting into pots with them may prove challenging to maintaining your course.
- Conversely, deep stack MTT's carry some of the same pitfalls as playing a large stack. Don't allow yourself to ignore the risk of playing more hands because the overall risk to your stack is less. Even in deep stack tournaments, players will become short as the blinds escalate. What you want to do is target higher profitable situations with less variance to build your stack. This may mean avoiding shorter stack players who want to get it all in, or the uber aggressive players who are just trying to be a bully.
- Know your structure. For both types, understanding the structure is critical; a deep stack tournament may play like a turbo; conversely a shorter stack tournament may have a slower blind structure. You want to ensure you know this going in so you can play accordingly.
Next week, we'll tackle part 3 where the money bubble comes into play and eventually bursts. How do you navigate that?? Stay tuned....
We hope you are enjoying our Thread Learning Series! Check out all our series, including our November Pot-Limit Omaha Series right here: CardsChat Learning Poker Thread Series Index
