SHAGGYGREEN POKER

Study Notes

Shove or Fold: Playing a Short Stack

Ten big blinds is less room than it feels like. Here's how to use it.

ShaggyGreen Poker ·

You lose a flip, one of those all-ins that could go either way. The blinds go up. Suddenly you're down to ten big blinds (10 BB). That's ten times the big blind.

Then it folds to you on the button. Only the small blind and big blind still have to act.

Those two players put chips in before anyone sees a card. In this game, the small blind posts half a big blind, the big blind posts one, and the big blind puts in one more as the ante for the whole table. That makes 2.5 BB in the middle. Win it without a call and all of it goes in your stack. That's a 25% increase in your stack size!

You could just wait for aces or kings. But when the blinds come around again, you'll have even fewer chips to work with. You can't afford to wait. When everyone folds to you this short, start by weighing two moves: shove all your chips in or fold. That's push/fold. A small raise can still make sense. We'll cover when that raise is worth making.

Count what an orbit costs you

Big blinds tell you how much you have. M tells you how long it can last.

An orbit is one trip around the table. In this setup, the dealer marker makes a full lap and you pay the small blind once and the big blind once. You also pay the ante once, on your big blind. That's the same 2.5 BB you saw on the button, now counted as the cost of one lap.

Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie explain M in Harrington on Hold'em, Volume II: The Endgame. Divide your stack by the cost of one orbit. Here it's 10 BB divided by 2.5 BB. Your M is 4. If the level stays the same and you fold every hand, your chips cover about four laps. If the blinds go up, those laps get more expensive.

That's what Harrington and Robertie call the Red Zone. Published summaries put it at roughly M 1 to 5. Think of it as a warning that the forced bets are eating a big piece of your stack each lap. Even a borderline hand can still be an easy fold when the spot is wrong.

One hand, two seats

Same stack. Same cards. Different seat. Assume nine players.

On the button, after everyone before you folds, only two players can call your shove. Move those same cards to the seat just left of the big blind. Now you're under the gun, poker shorthand for first to act before the flop. Eight players still have a decision. That's eight chances for someone to pick up a hand they'll call with.

That's what position buys you here. When you act later, you get to see who folds before you put in a chip. A hand you might shove with two players left can be a fold when you have to get through eight.

Have a plan before you raise

If everyone before you has folded and you make the first raise, that's an open. Say you open to 2.5 BB from a 10 BB stack. If someone goes all-in over your raise and you fold, you've spent a quarter of your stack.

A small raise can still be worth it. Before you make it, look at who could shove back. Which of those players would you call? Which would you fold to? Decide that before the chips leave your stack.

Being first in is worth a lot

When you shove first, you can win two ways. Everyone folds and you take the chips already in the middle. Or someone calls and your hand wins at showdown, after the remaining cards are dealt. The chance to win by making everyone fold is what players mean by fold equity.

When you call someone else's all-in, you've already lost that first way to win. How strong their hand figures to be depends on the player and the seat.

That's the gap David Sklansky wrote about in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. You can often shove first with hands you'd fold if someone else shoved first. If someone only made a small raise, though, they can still fold when you go all-in over it. If you're thinking about calling instead, ask how much more you have to put in, how much you stand to win, and what hands that player is likely to raise.

What calling costs them

Look at the players who can still call. The big blind already has a blind in the pot, so look at how much more that player has to put in. Then check how many chips they'd have left if they called and lost.

If a player has more chips than you, they cover you. They can knock you out if you lose an all-in to them. A player with exactly as many chips can knock you out too. A player with fewer chips can take a chunk out of your stack, but you'll still have chips left if you lose to them.

When a bust-out changes the payouts

The bubble is the point just before players start getting paid. A pay jump is an increase in prize money for finishing higher. Near either spot, look at who else is close to running out of chips. If you're one elimination from a bigger payout and someone else is about to put in most of their stack in forced bets, a close shove into a player who can knock you out deserves a second look.

ICM stands for Independent Chip Model. It uses the remaining stacks and the payout schedule to estimate what each stack is worth in prize money. Doubling your chips doesn't necessarily double that value. And once you're out, you lose your shot at the next payout. That's why the same shove can look different near the money or at the final table.

A short checklist for your next short stack

Before your next hand at fifteen big blinds or less, run through this:

  1. How many trips around the table can I afford at this level? Divide my stack by the cost of one trip.

  2. Can my bet make someone fold, or am I deciding whether to call an all-in?

  3. How many players still have to act?

  4. Who can knock me out? Who else is close to busting, and is a payout about to change?

  5. If I raise small and someone shoves, what's my plan?

Study it away from the table

A push/fold chart shows which starting hands to shove or fold in a particular spot. Look for one that matches the number of players, the ante, and the payout situation. Check the effective stack too. That's the smaller of the two stacks in a matchup, because that's the most either player can win from the other.

Practice hands where everyone has folded to you separately from hands where you're facing a shove. They're different decisions. Study at home. Poker Tournament Directors Association Rule 5D prohibits using strategy charts and similar tools at the table.

If the spot's bad, fold. If the spot's good, don't make the deck talk you into it twice.

—ShaggyGreen

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