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In the first of a new series, and to celebrate the arrival of the WSOP main event, Stuart Rutter takes you through the ins and outs of winning a deep stack tournament.
As the game of Hold’em has developed over the last couple of years, so the structure of ‘live’ tournaments has greatly improved. The main change is that tournaments now offer more opportunity for deep stack play. This should be warmly received by the players but at the same time it brings more complexities and difficulties to the game.
The Value of Starting Hands
Any good player should know that the value of a starting hand changes greatly depending on how many chips are in play. At the start of the tournament, when players may have 200 or more big blinds in their stack, the premium hands are worth less than normal, and it is the speculative hands, like small pairs and suited connectors, that gain value.
However, an easy trap is to not realise that the order of value of hands still does remain almost exactly the same. The phrase “I don’t want to pick up aces at the start of the tournament” is a common fallacy, and perhaps suggests that the player is not playing them with enough care.
So, how can you play with care? The mistakes of poor players with premium hands lead them to win small pots, and lose big pots. You need to aim to turn this result on its head, and the key to losing smaller pots is the technique called pot control. Let’s have a look at this example (see box):
Example #1
YOU: Ad-Ac
VILLAIN: ?? (draw two face down cards)
FLOP: Qs-Jd-10c
You are lucky enough to have aces on the button, and re-raise a player who has raised in early position. He calls, and you see the flop. Your opponent checks to you….
So many of the top hands are either beating you, or drawing live against you, that it is easy to panic. Instead, consider the value of checking behind in position. If your opponent did flop a hand to beat aces, you may still have to call his leads on the turn and river, but you actually lose a pot much smaller than calling letting him get value on three streets.
Are We Not Sacrificing Value?
Poker requires a fine balance of being aware of danger, without getting too scared. Here, we should realise that we are just as likely against a hand like A-Q, which we have in terrible shape.
However, checking the flop does not let us down, as we have disguised our hand, and should be able to collect two streets of value on the turn and river. Only a calling station should make us reconsider our plan, as against anyone else, it is unlikely that we will collect three streets of value against a hand like A-Q.
The Toughest Street in Poker
The great change in a deep-stacked tournament is that the action is still deep-stacked as you approach the street that is toughest to play. It’s the turn that brings about the most important decisions, and not least when you find yourself re-raised. The difficulty of a deep-stacked tournament is that when you are re-raised, you can find there are still a lot of chips in play, and this requires some very clear thinking.
Example #2
YOU: Ac-Kc
VILLAIN: ? ?
BOARD: As-10s-10d-2h
You raise an early-position limper with you’re A-K and see a flop. You bet 600 from your 10,000 stack on the flop, and are called. The turn is a blank two, and you bet 1,200. Your opponent now back raises you to 3,000, which would leave you 6,400 behind if you call. What do you do?
The answer can be quite simple. If you are not sure what to do when this situation is thrown up, do not put yourself in it. Pot control is the key here, as we avoid our dilemma if we check behind on the turn. Pot control is such a useful style, but it is sometimes tempting to overuse it, and choose safety rather than look for value. One scenario in which it would be wrong here is if your opponent is so very aggressive, or just so bad, that he will re-raise you not just with far weaker hands than just three tens. In that case, safety is for players who overvalue their tournament life, and you should choose the riskier line of trying to get all the chips in.
How Much Value is Being Lost?
Pot control encourages us to check in scenarios where the normal reaction would be to bet for value, and so it is always important to consider how much value you are sacrificing.
Here, if you check behind, you are no longer able to collect three streets of value against a weaker ace, but this should be unlikely against most decent players anyway. Instead, checking behind has the advantage of representing that you have been caught bluffing on the flop. On the river, you can now make a large bet, and many opponents will be even more convinced that you are running a bluff.
You may also have noticed the other big argument against checking the turn here, namely that there is a flush draw on the flop. However, if the flush draw misses on the river, many opponents will sense an opportunity to bluff. Your sin of giving a free card is forgiven, as you have effectively delayed the charge by causing your opponent to bluff on a later street.
Seeing Two Moves Ahead
The other scenario in which pot control is no longer necessary is quite the opposite. If you can be sure that your ace-king is beaten by the re-raiser, it is fine to bet here, as long as you never lose the discipline to fold.
It is crucial to be able to have this kind of plan about what your reaction will be to certain scenarios, and to be completely clear about it, before your make your first action. In fact, it should never come as a surprise to be re-raised on the turn. Save for a physical tell in how the opponent re-raises, you should be sure what you are going to do against a re-raise, each time before you decide whether to bet the turn.
For this reason, as the turn falls, your poker brain should no longer be considering just two options of checking or betting, but four options - checking, bet-folding (folding to a re-raise), bet-calling (calling a re-raise), and bet-reraising (raising a re-raise).
So, we are seeing that the solution to the complex decisions of a deep stack structure can be quite simple, and that is to try to avoid them. In my next article, we will look at how to make yourself a nuisance by causing difficulties for your opponent.
“At the start of the tournament, when players may have 200 or more big blinds in their stack, the premium hands are worth less than normal”
Key Lesson #1
The idea of pot control is to insure against big losses, but at the same time not lose value, instead transferring it to later streets.
Key Lesson #2
Never let a scenario come about that you do not have a plan for. Each time you make a bet, you should have a clear answer to the question “What am I going to do against a re-raise?” |
