Heavy Blinkers

Small Stack Strategy

You know what to do when you’re the chip leader, leaning on players, buying pots, trying to clear out the weak links so you can finish off the table and either claim your prize or move on to the next round. But what do you do when you’re that weak link trying to turn things around? How do you handle – or how SHOULD you handle – being short-stacked up against a big bully with a stack you can hardly see over?

The question everyone should be asking yourself here is when do you make your move? Does patience, something you’ve prided yourself on having the entire time, even factor into the equation here on FullTilt? The blinds won’t stop going up, so you can’t wait around forever. If you do, you’ll eventually find yourself all-in whether you want to be or not. But if you’ve just taken a huge loss, or have just realized that you’ve been nickel and dimed down from third place to sixth place with only enough chips left to call a few raises, how much longer do you wait before your remaining chips hold no power aside from keeping you alive?

I think there is a decision to be made here. You can’t just throw yourself all-in on the “next hand,” because that’s liable to be an 8, 3 off-suit, and you’ll be not only powerless, but also tagged as an impatient sucker who’ll “give up” when the going gets tough. That can hurt you in future tournaments.

I’d say give it three hands, if you can afford to, and/or put yourself in play the minute you get a hidden face card. A queen in the hand is better than crap in the bush.

You also have to be prepared to get called regardless of what you do at this stage in the game. If the chip leader was winning to play “call anything” mode for most of the game, you’re not going to throw him off that now, especially since him and everyone else is likely wise to the fact that you’re trying to buy your way back into relevancy. This won’t matter in terms of what you should do, since your options are limited anyway, but you shouldn’t be discouraged from going all-in on a face card just to be called by someone with a poorer hand statistically trying to catch you in exactly what you’re doing anyway. At that point, either of you could get lucky on the flop. If it’s you, though, you live to fight another day at Cake Poker.