Today we are going to run through some basic strategy on playing at different stack depths in Tournaments.
Learning what to do with your hands at different stack sizes is the key to feeling comfortable, in control and at home with tournament situations.
We will look at how to play stack depths of:
- Sub 15BBs
- 15-25BBs
- 20-40BBs
- Over 40BBs
These are the 4 main break downs of tournament Poker, as depending on which of these categories our stack is in determines how we are going to be able to play our hands. So let’s jump right in…
Short Stack Poker (Sub 15BBs)
So we are going to find ourselves in some rough shape from time to time, either from blinding down in tournaments and not picking up any playable hands or from losing a big pot.
We are going to look at how we should be playing a stack of below 15BBs and we can do it in two words…
ALL IN!
When we are this short in tournament Poker we are going to want to have a range of hands that we are simply going to push all in with and either steal the blinds and antes which are going to be massive in comparison to our stack or when we are called we get a chance of chipping up to decent stack again.
So what hands are we going to want to use?
Well this all depends on our position on the table, we are going to want to still have a tight shoving range from early position, but as we get closer to the Button and Small blind is when we can really start to shove wide. Let’s go over some ranges…
When we have around 10BBs for example we should be pushing all in from:
UTG: 44+ A7s+ A9o+ QJs+ KTs+ & KQo+
UTG+1: 33+ A4s+ ATo+ KJo+ K9s+ Q9s+ J9s+ T9s+
MP1: 22+ A3s+ ATo+ KJo+ K9s+ Q9s+ J9s+ T8s+ 98s+
MP2: 22+ A2s+ A8o+ KJ0+ K9s+ QJo+ Q9s+ J8s+ T8s+ 98s+
HJ: 22+ A2s+ A3o+ KTo+ K9s+ QT0+ Q9s+ JT0+ J8s+ T8s+ 97s+ 87s+ 76s+
CO: 22+ A2o+ A2s+ K9o+ K4s+ QTo+ Q6s+ JT0+ J7s+ T7s+ 97s+ 86s+ 76s+ 65s+
BTN: 22+ A2o+ A2s+ K2o+ K2s+ Q2o+ Q2s+ J9o+ J6s+ T9o+ T6s+ 96s+ 85s+ 75s+ 64s+ 54s+
SB: 22+ A2o+ A2s+ K5o+ K2s+ Q9o+ Q3s+ J4o+ J2s+ T6o+ T2s+ 96o+ 93s+ 86o+ 84s+ 76o+ 74s+ 650+ 63s+ 53s+ 43s+
As we have a slightly bigger stack we want to take out some of the bottom hands for every extra few Big Blinds we have in our stack, so if the minimum shove with 10BBs is A9o+, with 15BBs we will only want to shove with AJo+
There is a really good free app on the market called ‘Preflop+‘ with GTO Nash charts that you can access to learn what hands to move all in with. I would recommend using something like this to study some short stack strategy, so you can really get comfortable with what hands you can move all in within different situations.
For a little more in-depth view of the 10Big Blind shoving ranges CLICK HERE to view the range charts.
15-25BBs
When we are at this stack depth we can effectively re-steal from our opponents, if they open raise we can move all in over the top of their bets with fold equity on our side and do it with high equity hands so that if we do get called we shouldn’t be in too rough shape against their holdings.
Let’s take a look at some classic situations we are going to come up against from the Blinds facing late position steal raises…
So as you can see when we have fold equity we can shove a really wide range, wider in fact than the range we are going to want to open push much shorter stacks in fact.
We can really widen our range when we look at Button and Small blind opens, this is because these will be from a wide percentage of our opponents’ hands where they just can’t call off a large re-shove
This is a big leak in many players games, not fighting back enough against the late position opens, look how wide we can profitably shove our 20BBs in against a Button raise, even hands like 65s show a profit!
20-40BBs
Another big leak in many players games is that they aren’t getting aggressive enough with their mid-sized stacks, too many of us seem to go into lockdown mode looking for a real hand! However tournament poker is about pouncing on spots and finding small edges to exploit, so we are going to want to use our 20+BB stacks for finding good re-steal spots.
What makes a good spot?
Players with high preflop raise tendencies are going to make good spots to apply some pressure, so too are late position opens, look to play your button aggressively with suited connectors against your late position opponents. Picking up the betting lead, playing in position and getting aggressive are going to win you so many more pots with this stack size, Give it a try!
Deep stacked Poker (Over 40BBs)
With this stack depth be confident in looking to set mine with all pairs as over 40BBs is the depth you will need to do this profitably.
Look to construct a solid polarised 3-Betting range.
We will want to be 3-Betting all of our Value hands as well as some steal hands like A5s and K8s in the mix so that we are not only 3-Betting with the nuts and become too easy to read.
For a look at some more tips on how to play deep stacked tournament Poker CLICK HERE to read our in-depth piece on Playing with Deep Stacks.
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