When, if at all, should you adjust your play due to imminent raising of the blinds?

Examples: Tourney 1st level 15,000 chips = 300BB, but in 5 minutes I will have 150BB because the blinds go up.

Or more extreme: I have 16BB which is not good but I'm not in the danger zone yet, but in a couple of minutes I will have 8BB.

The way I deal with it at the moment I just realise that I suddenly have half as many BB as I used to, but I get the feeling I should be doing more.

Especially with end game/short stacked play I'm sure I should be doing something to take into account the imminent raising of blinds. But what?

Are we talking live tournaments or online? The blinds don't normally double past the first few levels, you usually get progressions like 200-400, 300-600, 400-800, etc. unless it's a crappy live structure.

Anyway, the way to deal with rising blinds is to be more aggressive. Open more pots from late position, widen your hand selection. When you're at between 20-25 BB's, you should recognize that you have an awkward stack size to open pots with, but a perfect stack for re-stealing (shoving over a loose raiser's open as a semi-bluff). When you get to around 10-12 BB's (or 15 if there are antes) you should be shoving all-in with any hand you intend to play, preferably being first in (your range here should be fairly tight from early position, widening up a lot in late position. Most of the time you're not looking to get called). I believe the MTT forum has some stickies that can give you more specifics. Good luck.

I'm talking live and with a structure such as:

25/50
50/100
100/200
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000/100

etc

So are you basically saying that I should always play more aggressively? Or just close to blind raises? Or just with certain size stacks? Or just at certain late levels?

You want to adjust your play based on your stack size (or the average effective stack size at the table if you happen to have a big stack), not based on the blind levels. I'm not saying to always do anything, these are just general principles. Just as always, your UTG range is going to be a lot tighter than your MP or your button range, but as stacks get shorter even your UTG range should widen. (For instance, with 10 bb you probably shove 77 UTG, whereas with 30 bb you'd fold it). The re-stealing advice is based on a raiser having a loose range, which will usually happen around the CO or button. With a good re-steal stack against a loose raiser, you can profitably shove a pretty wide range of hands (think suited Aces, broadway hands, suited connectors, and pairs), especially if his calling range is going to be tight. You shouldn't always resteal with one of these hands; if you did, your range would be heavily weighted toward bluffs and you'd become easy to play against. They key is to mix in enough of these hands with your legitimate re-raising hands (88+, AQs, AK).

Edit: I just realized that since this is a live tournament, the re-steal advice may not apply as much, just because live players tend to play really straightforward and only raise with good hands. Depending on the buy-in level, you might see players trying to limp in to see a "cheap" flop, with stacks as short as 7bb even. You can punish these players by raising or shoving over their limps, but with a tighter range than you'd have against a loose raiser, because you want a hand that rates to be ahead of the limpers' ranges in case you are called.

You should check out Small Stakes, or Midstakes MTT.

Here's the thing, and it's a secret....

<20BB shoving is very profitable because they only call 30% of the time.

Check this pushbot chart out made in Excel, by a very good MTTer.

work on hands ranges imho, Idk about live, but online u wanna exploit the sheeeet out of them.

And it depends on villian.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/23/small-stakes-mtt/updated-pushbot-spreadsheet-1000-post-thank-you-824728/

thanks for your advice freewill and that link doesn't work for me HUHandEH

I just tried it and it worked for me,.....took some time to load up though.

unless you have lost a big pot. try hard to not let yourself get low on chips. make plays to increase your stack well before and not hope for a miracle hand to build your chips.

15K with blinds like that I clam up unless I have a great hand the first 4 levels then start to play very aggressively at 200/400 ish....one pot then is worth more than about 5 the 1st few levels. Those blinds are for quick tourny's....damm....being passive later in those you would get crushed...to much $ in the pots...whoever is best at stealing blinds is going to have a large advantage imo.