Advice from a veteran

[Andy Holt]

Yesterday on Vent, I was talking to Obertray about tournament strategy and eventually he said something to the extent of "putting pressure on the short stacks" being a common mistake and a wide misconception. He also said he didn't like "taking the 40 end of the 60-40."

I took the advice to heart and thought about it some more. I came up with this conclusion: when a short stack feels like he has no options left and must go all-in or fold (assuming a rational short stack who thinks at least a little bit about his decisions) he must pick a hand that will take him the route of a double-up. This could be anything down to a medium pair or Ax. I would rarely if ever push with Kx with over 4-5xBB, but am more than happy with Ax. Thus, a regular "raising hand" is cheapened when someone goes all-in for a small reraise, taking a 3xBB reraise and perhaps doubling it or adding 2xBB or whatever they have left. A "raising hand" in a late tourney could be KT, JT, KQ, T9, whatever. The idea here is that the gap between what a normal stack raises with and what a short-stack goes all in with is usually in the shortie's favor, more times than not.

It could be the short stack's middle pair favored 55-45 over two broadway. It could be Ax favored 60-40 over Kx. The general idea is that if a short stack feels like going all-in, then they are probably ahead against a standard raising hand, so "putting pressure on the short stacks" isn't necessarily an extremely worthwhile endeavor as most had thought.

At least that's what I gathered.

EDIT: This "pressure" we put on the short stacks refers to raising with a good-but-not-great hand preflop in the hopes that a short stack will be put to a tough decision. Raising with trash and raising with a premium hand aren't applicable.

[Sprayed]

I've heard this before. Makes sense.

[Anon.E.Moose]

agreed. I'm always weary of trying to steal blinds from a short stack with a hand that I'm not happy calling his all in with, if he pushes

[digitaldoc]

Spend more of your time focusing on the mid-stacks. They aren't in the double up mind set, but typically want to protect what they have and not take any unnecessary risk. Also try to avoid mega stacks unless you got some monster cards. (They like calling and taking people out.)

[shysti]

Yep this is Harrington 101. lol

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[digitaldoc]

I think the original intention of the post was a discussion of stealing from what I call wounded ducks (someone who has less than 5xBB). As long as you are in a position either chip wise or card wise to call his all in push, don't bother trying to steal his blind. Or if you're going to try to take his blind push enough chips out there to put him all in. That way the decision is 100% his.

As far as stealing goes late in MTT's, much of that play is determined by the feel of the table. Who will laydown a mediocre hand to a min raise? Who'll lay down to a 3x raise? Who is likely to call or re-raise based on past play. Building the stack during this time in the game requires the ability to steal like Robin Hood, in fact to the point sometimes you feel like this is frickin' obvious. Putting pressure on players to make tougher and tougher calls is the whole idea. I like to think that we all do it.

One word of caution is don't mistake late tourney blind stealing with LAG play upfront. They are very seperate.