I ended Part 1 of my look at 6-seat SNGs by suggesting that it becomes as easy to fold the best hand on the bubble as it is to end up all-in with trash. To explain how this can even be a problem for good, experienced players you need only think of what you would do with a few specific hands when down to the final three. Let’s assume again that the blinds are 150/300 but this time you have 2200 chips and wake up on the button with A-2o. Your opponents both have about 3400 chips so you are short-stacked but certainly not crippled.
What do I do with a rag ace?
With you holding an ace the chances of an opponent holding another ace, most likely with a better kicker, is only about 1 in 5. The chances of an opponent holding a pocket pair is about 1 in 17 so there is good reason to hope that your hand is winning pre-flop. With this in mind you might push all-in but if you do receive a call then you know immediately that you are in big trouble against a typical player’s range. Perhaps the best call you can hope for is from a hand like KQo, which is tough to fold on the big blind, short-handed, and against which you would be a 57% favourite.
But hang on, this doesn’t sound that good. Your best case scenario if you get called sees you still only a marginal favourite and most of time a call will find you to be an underdog. Basically you’re desperate to force two folds and take the blinds and have very little reason to be confident about a showdown. Well that’s more or less what you would be thinking if you held 7-2o as well! This can make you think one of two ways depending on whether you are a ‘glass half-full’ or ‘glass half-empty’ type of player. An optimistic, aggressive player might conclude that the chances of either opponent having a hand to genuinely fear is slim enough that he might as well push all-in with a wide range of start cards – almost anything. With this mentality it becomes easy to comprehend how a player suddenly finds his tournament future on the line with trash. When that happens a few times in a row it’s not uncommon for the aggressor to rein in his rash tendencies and determine to never go out with a bad hand again. Suddenly the chastened bubble player goes into his shell and folds A-2o on the button because he would be annoyed to go out without a genuinely big hand. The fact that it may well in fact be the best hand at this point is just an annoyance. This is the ultimate tournament dilemma and it has no easy answers. But there is, of course, another play option that I haven’t mentioned today, and it is a crucial one.
So can I still get away with raising and how much?
As I alluded to in Part 1 this is another delicate option because of the general air of suspicion that surrounds most tournament tables. A raise when the blinds are worth winning will always carry the whiff of stealing with it and this must be factored in. Suddenly, the chip stack sizes and the tendencies of your rivals are far more important in determining tactics than the cards themselves. This is the essence of competitive poker; to play the opponent and the situation, not just the cards.
With some players I know that if I raise the minimum amount on the bubble of a 6-seat tournament they will always call in the big blind and they have good odds to do so. I also know that if I raise 3-times the big blind with such a shallow stack then I’m probably committing to the pot, whether I like to or not. In the example above it is very hard to justify raising 900 chips out of my 2200 only to give up to a re-raise, or without betting a flop. I can’t waste 41% of my chips like that and end up with 1300 chips. However, if I had just a few more chips then I would consider a steal raise and it would be in-between the minimum and the ‘standard’ in size.
Does raising 2.5 times the big blind really help?
I genuinely believe that the ‘2.5 raise’ eg 750 when the blinds are 150/300 is a secret weapon that isn’t utilised effectively by many SNG players. As with so many good tactics, if you find it is difficult to play against then it’s probably something to consider adding to your own playbook. As crazy as it may sound many players will become reticent about calling on their big blind for a further 450 chips when seemingly they wouldn’t think twice about it for 300. Therefore, that can mean more pots won uncontested. Secondly, the ‘2.5 raise’ looks like a carefully sized bet that you might throw in with a premium hand, thus causing trepidation. Conversely, when it becomes clear that the ‘2.5’ has become your standard raise it will provide excellent disguise when you do pick up a monster. This can work spectacularly well against an opponent who gets frustrated by calling and then folding the flop who instead attempts to put you in your place pre-flop with a re-raise all-in bluff.
Admittedly raise sizing is about personal preference and many good players would play down the significance I have given to ‘2.5 betting’. But in small SNGs fine margins can make huge differences in the long term. For example, thousands of games of experience suggest to me that the difference between having 1300 chips when the blinds are 150/300 or having 1850 is significant. Therefore, raising 900 chips to steal from an initial 2200 feels like a mistake and yet raising 750 chips from a stack of 2600 feels acceptable. There’s a telling difference to me between risking 29% of my chips on a bubble steal in the latter case as opposed to 41% in the former. Once you take away the maths, it’s a game of opinions.