How to play short stack in a tournament ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fida
  • Start date Start date
When you are short stacked, you should play more high card hands and fold low cards more often. A hand like KQ on a Q-high board is basically going to be a monster because villain will have a lot of hands like QJ and QT in his cold calling range, and AQ would likely 3bet preflop in this situation. From players who lack experience in playing short stacks. Others are recreational players who don't care about your math and concepts.
 
Leeyonah96 said:
Wait for premium hands or Pair higher than 66. Good to Jam and pray that you will win the pot
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I agree. Play in Tight Aggressive mode. ie go all in, with prize hands.
 
Fida said:
Hi !

What are some easy tips to take into consideration when you're running out of chips during a tournament ? Like what hands to play ? How to play them ?
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Wait for premium hands or Pair higher than 88, and play agressively, go all in everytime you receive thats hand.
 
Atleast for me,when im short stacked,i play much much more hands.Also,if you are really in a bad spot,you should almost alwaays all in,so that way I almost always all in A-X.
 
I think that when you have less than 10BB you must go all in or fold. I think that call is not a good option. In other aspect, for me is better play hands with few players 🙂

Sorry for my english 😬
 
I would wait for premium hands 77's and above myself but i would also call very small raises and see flops when you can because otherwise you're just gonna end up draining all of your blinds and out of the tournament anyway! At least with this strategy you'll have a chance at very little risk.
 
In any case, one way out is to wait for a hand that you find decent all-in and wait for luck.
 
If you just have around 10 bb left. Just push it all in with all high Aces, suited Aces or pocket pairs.
 
When the stack is small there is not much you can do. Expect a reasonable hand for more and if possible in a good position where those who played before you didn't raise then go all-in. If antes are already committing a lot of your stack, don't expect very strong hands as they may not come in time.
 
fundiver199 said:
If you are significantly shorter than the tournament average, you can actually play rather freely, since chips won are almost as valuable as chips lost. So you can play fairly normal ranges and look for spots to rejam, and when your stack get even shorter open jam. Its really all about preflop, so learn push fold ranges ideally from working with a program like ICMizer. Or if that is not an option, then study some of the free push-fold chats, which are available online.

The biggest mistake, people make, are being to conservative with a short stack. They fold, fold, fold and end up blinding away, until they have to go with some fairly random hand, unless they get lucky enough to pick up a monster just in time. So my main tip for being the short stack is to get rid of all fear of dying. You are selected to go out as one of the next already, and the best chance to change that is to accumulate more chips.
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There is nothing to add to this. Perhaps you can also try to use the position.
 
Just to add my two cents....if I find myself short-stacked in a tournament, I like to jam in certain spots with reasonable holdings while I can still do damage to the other stacks. Like, if I fold too much and let myself get blinded away, then calling my all-in becomes easier for the other players. But if they have to risk half their stack (or more), it puts more pressure on them to call me, almost forcing a fold. We're assuming they are thinking players, of course.

Sometimes, you'll just run into premium pairs or AK. That's poker 🙂
 
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