Generally when you have a 10bb or less stack it seems that the consensus is to push/fold poker depending on your cards and position. Often in a tournament I find myself with this stack size as the blinds increase and I often find myself eventually all in and flipping which leads to me eventually losing.

So say you have a stack of 1,000 and the rest of the table has around that stack size, maybe the most being 2k chips. The blinds are 5/100 so I only 10bb left, now I feel pressure to play push fold. Should I be playing different since most stacks at the table only have around 10bb as well? Most of the time people will just keep limping so when I shove I get called facing all sorts of situations where I'm flipping, dominated, or only slightly ahead.

Even just recently I was in a situation were a few people limped and I shoved from the button with AJ and got called by a medium pocket pair. The guy told me I played my hand wrong and was short sighted because the rest of the table also has a small stack. So am I doing something wrong?

Another situation I find myself in with a 20bb+ stack is when I raise to steal and get called by a short stacker. It's always awkward because if I cbet and they call, now almost half of my stack is in the middle and he has barely anything left behind so I don't know if I should give up or not. These situations make me wish I just shoved instead raising 3x. What do you do in these spots?

Issue #1 .. Not so sure you misplayed your AJ. With all the dead money in there from the limps (and maybe antes) a 10bb push from the B is certainly in play. You should have a pretty good feel for 'why' the limping is going on. (Hard for me to figure out at that stage of a tournament why people are limping, but ... ) Sure you might be dominated, but that's all part of your take on the spot. Look at the math ... Yes, you are flipping with your cards but you were in a spot getting at least 2 to 1 once the chips went in. That's a +EV spot and when you are short stacked!!

The comment may have been because you could've been dominated by a bigger Ace .. but I think it's really shortsighted on his part to think AJ v 77 getting 2 to 1 or better is not a good situation when short. It's just as easy to get called by KJ/KQ in that spot as pp/AK/AQ when there are 'so many' short stacks.


Issue #2 .. Whenever you raise, you need to know who is on your left and what you are going to do with them if ... 3-bet/shove/flat. Unless you are HJ/CO/B you aren't raising to steal .. you are just opening, and subject to any action behind. A lot of tournaments in the late stages see only 2x opening bets .. that is hardly a steal from any position.

Tighten your ranges based on position and be aware of the stacks still left to act. React to what the table is 'allowing' to happen and go from there. GL

I'm playing micro buy ins $1 - $5 tournaments with a mix of regular and turbo structures. This particular tournament was a $1 turbo. The players are generally weak and they all limp in to try and see a cheap pot and will often fold to a raise. One player called a raise and folded on the flop with only 2 bigs left in his stack.

The reason why I took merit to this guys criticism is because he is a winning tournament player and I am not. As I said, often when I go down to 10BB or less at any level of the tournament I will start playing push fold and I usually bust out unless I'm running good. So my question is if the average stack at the table is 10BB, when we are deeper in the tournament, should I still be playing push fold? Maybe I should be min raise stealing instead, but if I do randomly get called I hardly have a cbet left.

In any tournament, especially a Turbo, you have to create your own edges or take advantage of what the table is 'offering'. What did the player tell you to do there, fold? If so, that is just a function of range and he may feel that you are dominated far too often with AJ in that kind of spot. I can somewhat agree with that, but I don't know how those tournaments play. You are dominated only by bigger Aces, not by a lower pp in that spot IMO!!

You keep stating a 'min raise steal' .. If folks are letting you get away with this from late position, then do it. The less chips you have to risk in order to obtain 'more' chips the better!! Just make sure you have a plan for whose left in the hand.

In limit poker, I have seen folks grind 4-5bb. But in NL it should be a bit higher than that IMO. Are you near the money? Generally opponent ranges tighten near the money and you need to be aware of that. In those spots it may be better to shove than raise .. and it also might be better to fold.

I guess you can pick this other player's mind a bit more, but at 7-10bb if I can flip with 77 v my AJ getting almost 2 to 1 in the pot, I'm happy. You either bust or have 30bb in front now. Then re-tighten your range until you have to do it again after you win. Certainly I would rather have the 77, but in a turbo you can't wait around. GL

No you didn't do anything wrong, shove all day long every day of the week. The guy who said you played it wrong is a total idiot and you should literally ignore every single word he says about poker.


If people limp preflop, note what they do that with. If limp 44/55/66 but never QQ/KK/AA/AQ/AK then AJ is the nuts here because you are never dominated and will be flipping the majority of the time when called, sometimes you'll crush him and a lot of the time people just fold which is the best result. If 3 people limp, you shove 10BB and everyone including blinds fold you pick up 4,5BB which is absolutely massive. If they limp strong hands too be a little more careful with shoving as KQ/KJ type of hands will do worse but AJ would still be a shove even if they sometimes limp monsters.

Oh and there is a difference between just you having 10BB and everyone having 10BB. If you are the only shortstack you will have more fold equity. If everyone else is 30BB and you shove 10BB, the next person does not only have to call the 10BB, he can also face a shove over the top which effectively puts his 30BB in jeopardy when he calls your shove. For you having 10bb this would be the ideal position, if everyone else is shortstack you need to play a little tighter.

Or....

Op said...

op comes over to me as open, honest and a noobie (no offence we is all noobs once)

op is querying shove AJ short stacked from the btn in a tourney - we all know that is pretty standard play.

I suggest therefore villain might not be an idiot - he could be cleverly spraffing op to...

a. Keep him playing.
b. Keep him playing badly (he no like calling his shoves, he prob prefers calling or restealing a min raise as it improves his edge.).

Op, in any good tourney book (Kill Everybody, Raisers Edge) there are chapters on bubble factors including variations in stack size. That said shoving AJ on the btn with 10bb in an unopened or limped pot is a no brainer in most tourney situations and if you folded it pre it would be because of pay out factors rather than stack sizes in the blinds.

Also villian is an idiot as Kelvis says, or a complete ****. Either way keep shoving on his ass.

OP said there were a few limpers, including this "winning player". I think it is more likely that the United States of America will adopt communism than this guy being anything more than an idiot, I could be wrong though.

Well, I also thought villain was just a dumbass initially. Then I thought about it for a moment and considered the fact that I'm really not great at tournaments myself as I keep busting out in these spots. So I decided to look up villain on a poker DB. Although his sample size is small, (~~168 tournaments) he is in the green and his graph looks like a winning cash game graph. My graph however, over almost the same sample is a downward slope. Therefore I thought maybe I'm making a mistake somewhere and thus my post here where I can ask more experienced guys. Maybe villain is on a heater and I'm just facing variance.

I'm definitely a tournament noobie. In cash games I don't find many confusing spots. In tournaments I find countless spots where I do not know what to do. In these micro tournaments people will limp with their short stacks with weak hands. Villain in particular likes to limp his whole range of pocket pairs and reshove with them, I've seen it a few times now.

I'm afraid I'm making an error by shoving every hand that merits a shove (I follow push/fold charts) with this short stack when every other person also has the same size stack. But I don't see how else to play it because there is no room for post flop play at this time. I'm always the most aggressive player at the table, but eventually I get called by a better hand or a flipping hand and bust. Maybe I'm being results oriented though? People love to limp their stack away so I barely get an open pot to shove so I'm often shoving over limpers.

Limping with a mid PP is really bad at 10bb, don't take advice from him.

In that case Kelvis is totally correct - guys a whale ignore him completely.

Meaningless sample for tourneys where variation is huge.

Given you comments, I'd get your head in a good tourney book.

By the way, if that guy likes to limp/shove his (low-mid) pairs, combat it by not shoving A5s but weigh more towards QJ/KT and stuff like that. It has way better equity when called against the way he shapes his limping range.

The reason why his way of playing is terrible is because he never ever gets fold equity when he limps and then calls a shove with 66. Almost any hand that you shove over his limp will have very good equity against him and a lot would have folded had he simply shoved himself. Are you calling on the button for 10BB with KT if he shoves? Probably not, but you are shoving it yourself so he wins a lot of pots uncontested if he simply shoves.