Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (60 page)

You must be able to read your table well. Play tight if you are going to be re-raised, and raise like crazy if everyone will fold every time you put a chip in the pot. As everyone’s stack gets shorter, the players at the top of the leader board are the ones that adjust properly to their table and refuse to lose chips to bad decisions.

The All-In Squeeze

When you have between 40 and 27 big blinds, you have a perfect stack to go all-in after a raiser and caller before the flop. For the squeeze to make sense, you need a hand with some equity, and you need the pre-flop raiser to be fairly loose. The caller will usually have a fairly weak hand like a suited connector that he will fold to your push almost every time.

For example, if an aggressive player raises to 2.5BBs and another player calls, you should be willing to push for up to 40BBs with a fairly wide range of hands, such as A
-10
, 6
-5
, 10
-8
and 7
-7
. In these situations you are risking 40 big blinds to win the 8 big blinds in the pot. There also will be antes (discussed in Volume 2), which slightly bloat the pot. So, if the initial raiser calls 20 percent of the time and you have on average 35-percent equity, the equation for your expectation looks like this:

0.8(8) + 0.2[(0.35)(85) – 40] = 4.4 big blinds profit.

The pot you win before the flop if everyone folds is 8BB, and when you push, your equity in the 85BB pot is 0.35. Squeezing in this spot is hugely profitable when the pre-flop raiser folds often. It becomes hugely unprofitable if the pre-flop raiser will rarely fold.

From time to time the player that called the initial raise will call you. You usually have decent equity in this case because he is probably calling with a small pair. You can subtract a small amount from the win rate to compensate for these rare situations. From time to time, the caller will wake up with a slow-played monster. Take note on who slow-plays in these spots and be sure to not squeeze them.

Actively looking for all-in squeeze opportunities will dramatically increase your win rate. If your opponents view you as a tighter player, it will be even more profitable because they will fold far too often. If you’re bluffing, don’t show your hand unless you’re called. Play all your strong hands the same way to give your squeezes more credit. Nothing is worse than squeezing a few times and then picking up A-A and instead of squeezing, re-raising to something like 10BBs. While you may think you are suckering your opponents in, you should do the same thing every time. In this case, just go all-in.

Early-Position Steal

Everyone knows that it is important to steal the blinds late in a tournament. Most everyone knows that people raise from late position with a large range of hands in order to steal the blinds. Most everyone also knows that people usually only raise from early position with strong hands. Because of this, there are many great spots to raise from early position as a total bluff, with basically no intention of putting in any more money besides a continuation bet if called. If you raise often from early position, players will no longer give you credit for a good hand, so use this play sparingly. Don’t put in too much money post-flop when you’re called, as people will generally assume you have a strong hand, like 9-9+ or A-Q+. When you get action, it is usually from someone that can beat most of those hands.

Think about a few things before making this play. First, you need a tight early-position image. If you have raised from early position in each of the last few orbits, a bluff is unlikely to work. If you have not raised from early position in a long time, feel free to raise with a wide range. I usually raise with 4-4+, A-J+, K-Q and J-10s+ from early position all the time. I widen this to include hands like 9-7o, 2-2, A-3, and 4-3s when I am bluffing. Try to raise into blinds that are fairly tight. Raising with a weak hand doesn’t do you much good if there is a loose calling station in the big blind. You should usually fold to a re-raise. Your opponents will put you on a tight range, so a player willing to re-raise must have a strong hand. If you are deep-stacked, go ahead and take a flop with hands like 3-3 and 9-8s, as you can win a big pot on a good flop. Fold every time with hands with reverse implied odds, like A-J and K-Q. Despite having a bunch of players behind you, when used sparingly, this play will work a huge percentage of the time, usually taking down the blinds.

Being Pot-Committed

The idea of being pot-committed is interesting because if you think ahead, you should rarely have the right odds to call. As we learned earlier, if you are the last person putting in the bet with a draw, you will never be in a tricky spot because you know you always have some fold equity. As stacks get shorter, don’t pot-commit yourself before the flop with decently strong, but not monster hands.

Suppose someone raises from middle position to 2.5BBs and you have A
-J
with a 40BB stack. You could either re-raise to around 7BBs or call. Before you re-raise to 7BBs, you must decide what you will do if your opponent pushes. Most of the time you’ll be getting 2-to-1, or will be in a spot where you expect to have around 35-percent equity, in which case you should just call. In fact, unless you are trying to gamble to get a more playable stack, you should seldom re-raise with this stack size because if you get pushed on, you will usually be getting the correct odds to make a break-even call. Only consider a re-raise if you have a strong hand or are re-raising a loose raiser.