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 30 BB is the new 10 BB
Wildly loose aggressive play is the new standard for most MTT players these days. Half the table rolling the dice going all-in before the flop with any two cards. Even happened at the WSOP this year, to the extent that pros were quoted complaining about it in a Chicago Tribune article. And if it happens there, you know it's happening more and more at small stakes online MTTs.
Soupie mentions this scenario in one of his strategy articles on this site (all excellent, by the way). His plan is to "join the party" with his best hands: AK, AQ, and middle pairs and up. I'm not sure about middle pairs here. If there are 5-6 people in the pot, the odds of *someone* pairing up their A, K, or Q are pretty high. If I'm gonna play this way, I'd rather roll the dice with AJ or AT than 88. But in any case, the real problem is we're still only talking 10% or less of all hands. You and me and soupie will still be folding the first 4-5 hands the majority of the time.
And that leaves us in a challenging situation. Because we may lose 2/3 of the field in the first 4-5 hands. The wild gamblers who lost are gone. The wild gamblers who won have tripled or quadrupled through or more, and they are satisfied for the time being. Now it's too late to "join the party", because you won't get the same number of callers that there were the first few hands. So we are stuck with a stack 1/3 the size of most of the rest of the remaining field.
I am posting to discuss strategy for this situation. For a little while you can try to play your normal style. If it works, great, everything is back to normal. But if you don't start winning pots soon, you will find yourself short-stacked and losing ground quickly. The question is, when do you change strategy, and what should your new strategy be?
In my experience, it is time for a change when your stack shrinks to less than 30 BB. That doesn't sound like an emergency situation, but consider your options. When big stacks can easily raise any pot 3-5 BB before the flop, can you still afford to call with your suited connectors in the hope that the flop hits you? Can you make your standard 3 BB preflop raise with a strong hand and your standard big continuation bet on the flop even if it doesn't hit you? With a 30 BB stack, are you willing to give away all those chips if you get raised? How many times?
My answer to those questions is no, no, and no. These days you just can't play "normal" poker with 30 BB short-stacked in an MTT. That's why I called this post "30 BB is the new 10 BB." In my opinion, with 30 BB it's already time to shove or fold before the flop every hand.
The good part is, with 30 BB you can afford to be more selective than you are with 10 BB. I get very tight with a 15-30 BB short stack. I go all-in with AK and pairs TT and up, and fold everything else. Against a table of good poker players, this strategy would be suicidal. In today's MTTs, this strategy is profitable.
Big stacks simply hate to fold to short stacks in this situation. They are loose, aggressive, lucky this tournament, and they just aren't very good poker players. They think KJ is a strong hand. And they will call short stacks with weaker stuff than that.
TT is a good example to break down the odds with. Yes, you will lose if anyone has JJ or better. Dem's da breaks. But you will also get called with AT all the time. You will get called with KT some of the time. Already you are almost breaking even on this play. But I guarantee you people will call with K9 too. And with QT. And even with K8 and Q9 and Q8. The face cards are so pretty, and hey, those are straight draws, right? And there's always the guy who will call you with any ace. My TT is heads-up with one caller and ahead more than twice as often as it is behind. Of course there will be plenty of toss-ups against two overcards. You got to take your chances in MTTs.
In a 90-100 player MTT, I can post and fold down to 30 BB, double or triple through just once with AK, TT or better, and I am probably at the final table in the money already. And this is in a bad tournament where I am not catching any breaks with cards, flops or pots. Just double up once at the right time, and the bad tournament becomes a money tournament.
On a really bad day I will go down below 15 BB without seeing any of those big hands I like to shove with. Now I have to loosen up a little and shove 99, 88, AQ, AJ, and AT as well. Worst-case scenario, I'm stuck at 10 BB or less. Now almost anything goes. Well, still not quite anything: just any ace, pairs 55 or better, and kings K9 and up. If I can't even land one of those hands, I am fine being blinded away to the very end and see if I get lucky with a random hand or two at the end to keep me alive. Amazing how many other people will bust out during that time, moving me up in the money.
I don't like playing poker this way. I much prefer to win a big pot early, and bet aggressively before and on the flop like annette15, or play cleverly after the flop like soupie, or steal pots with 74 offsuit like rippy. But if that doesn't happen, I like to give myself another chance and another way to get into the money. And I find fold or shove big hands at 30 BB pays off nicely against today's breed of aggressive, loose, and not very good poker player in MTTs. Remember, there's nothing the good players at the table can do to prevent the bad players from calling your big hand shoves with poor hands.
rokirovka
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Originally Posted by rokirovka
