| Playing the short stack is a common issue that all | | | | each limp or call takes an increasing percentage of |
| poker players face in almost every tournament at | | | | your chips and your move and all-in need to remain |
| some point. Small stack poker requires a lot of | | | | threatening enough so that when you make your all-in |
| discipline and patience to wait for the right moment | | | | move that bet isn't too low for most of the table to call |
| and situation to make your move to try to get the | | | | without much harm done to their stacks if they lose. |
| double up to get you back in the game. | | | | I highly suggest jam-or-fold mode for your play once |
| The first thing that needs to be tracked at all times is | | | | you are at 10x the big blind or lower. At this point, you |
| how big your chip stack is compared to the players at | | | | can enter 10 pots and each pot you enter decreases |
| your table, your chip stack relative to the blinds and | | | | your chip stack by 10%. Its not worth it to limp and try |
| your stack compared to the average chip stack in the | | | | to catch when your chips need to enter the pot. So |
| tournament. All of these factors dictate how much | | | | when you enter this danger zone sit back and wait for |
| leniency you have with making plays or attempting a | | | | a good hand to make your move with. Choosing this |
| variety of strategies and the smaller the stack the | | | | hand isn't too difficult, of course you are looking for a |
| smaller the amount of moves you can make become. | | | | high pair or a premium hand like A-K but pushing with |
| A very general guideline is that from 20x the big blind | | | | J-10, Q-9, K-9 are also acceptable if there are a lot of |
| and up you can typically play your normal game, | | | | folds before you. |
| having enough chips to take a few risks and/or play | | | | Another theory that is a bit more advanced is the |
| your normal game. For example, the blinds are 100-200 | | | | theory of receiving first-in rights. This theory states that |
| and you have 4,500 chips. This is over 20x the big blind | | | | if you are on a small stack later in a tournament and |
| so you have a lot of flexibility in terms of your play. | | | | action folds around to you that you can move all in |
| Once you get around 15x the big blind with your chips | | | | with just about any two cards, leaving out only the |
| your moves become increasingly limited. At this point | | | | worst possible hands. This is a risky theory and works |
| attempting an extravagant buff or calling raises with | | | | best at a tighter table but is extremely helpful. I once |
| less-than-stellar hands is out of the question. A lot of | | | | made this move with 10-6 off suit to test this theory |
| players at this point enter a mode of play I like to call | | | | and ended up getting lucky and tripling up after both |
| "jam-or-fold." Simply put, this means that you either go | | | | blinds called. If you get called, just hope you have live |
| all-in with your hand or fold. The logic behind this is that | | | | cards that hit. |