Your chips are your weapons. The more weapons you have, the more options you have in attacking your opponents. A large stack provides flexibility in playing tactics. If you get reduced to a short stack, your choices will become severely limited and your attack will be reduced to the all-in move.
Always keeping track of your CSI and adjusting your play accordingly is the single most important aspect of endgame play. Make sure you fully understand this concept and all of its implications before proceeding; we’ll constantly refer to it. You’ll be rewarded if you master this concept and adjust your moves appropriately.
Why do you have to change your style of play depending on your stack size? There are three main reasons:
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As the blinds become larger in comparison to your stack, it begins to cost too much to wait for premium hands.•
Stealing the blinds becomes more valuable.•
You have smaller implied odds for your speculative hands.The first two are fairly obvious, but the third one may be the most important. The profitability of speculative hands, such as small pocket pairs and suited connectors, depends on implied odds. They rarely make big hands, but when they do, they’re really big. As a result, you generally prefer to see the flop cheaply with these hands and have enough left in your stack to get paid off if you hit. If your CSI gets too low, your payoff will be too small to make up for all
the times that you fold these speculative hands when you don’t improve.
A handy guideline is the Rule of 5 and 10, previously discussed on page 51. Use this rule when you’re thinking about calling a raise with a speculative hand. As you’ll recall, if your stack is less than 5% of the raise, then it’s an easy call. If it’s more than 10%, then it’s an easy fold. If it’s between 5% and 10%, then it’s a judgment call. Be more apt to call if:
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You have position on the raiser. Position is very important with suited connectors, but not as important with pocket pairs.•
You have a medium pocket pair (77 or 88) rather than a smaller one.•
You have a no-gap suited connector, such as 7 6 rather than a 1- or 2-gapper such as T 8 or 9 6 .•
Your opponent is the type of player who rarely folds top pair or an overpair after the flop.Note that if your opponent has a shorter stack than you, you need to consider the raise as a percentage of his stack rather than your own. His stack is the one limiting the implied odds. This is a very important point. For example, if your opponent has raised using 15% of his stack, you should generally fold, even if this raise represents only 5%
of your stack. Any time a stack size is mentioned, it should always refer to the “relevant stack,” that is, the biggest stack size that could come into play for you.
Of course, like any rule, there are exceptions. If I have position and have good control over an opponent (i.e., he’s predictable), I may very well make this call, knowing that I’ll often be able to take the pot away if I miss on the flop. The
“rules” presented here are really guidelines. Table composition and fear equity need to be constantly evaluated. As you gain experience, opportunities may arise that may violate these guidelines. At times such as these, winning players will deviate from the suggested line of play, and so should you. However, don’t kid yourself. Until the time when you’re capable of making accurate reads of your foes, it’s probably better to stick with the basic program.
Very speculative hands—suited 3-gaps like 95s, suited ace-low like A5s3, unsuited no-gaps like 87o, and suited connectors where the high card is 4 or less, such as 43s, require even more implied odds, because they have fewer ways of making a big hand. Therefore, you need to use something more like a Rule of 3 and 6 for calling with these hands. Any raise more than 6% of the smaller stack is probably too high to call and see the flop. The best time to call with very speculative hands is in position, when there’s unlikely to be a re-raise behind you.
The Rule of 5 and 10 ensures that you’ll have the proper implied odds when calling pre-flop raises. But similar logic applies when there’s no raise and you’re thinking about limping into the pot. If your stack is too short, then frequently, even limping doesn’t give you sufficient implied odds. It pays to be aware of the possibility of a raise behind you, which can destroy your chances of seeing a cheap flop.
The table on the following page summarizes playing stages corresponding to different CSIs.
As the blinds increase, you’ll feel more and more pressure to make a move. A common mistake, especially in a fast-paced tournament, is to play too tightly when the situation calls for aggression. The problem with overly tight play is that you may get blinded away to such an extent that by the time you get a good hand and double up, you’re still fairly short. Most professional players want to get out of the Aggressive and Move-in stages as quickly as possible.
They don’t wait for premium hands; they want to get their hands on some chips—or bust out trying.
To reiterate from our Rule of 5 and 10 discussion, if you’re the chip leader of the remaining active hands at the table, you should act as if you have the CSI of your largest opponent who’s still in the hand. For example, you’re on the button with a CSI of 15, the small blind has a CSI of 6, and the big blind is 4. If someone before you comes in with a CSI of 22, you should continue to act as a CSI of 15.
However, if it’s folded to you on the button, you outchip both of your remaining opponents. You should therefore act on this hand as if your CSI were 6. Your extra chips will not be in play this hand, so you don’t have the added flexibility of a
deeper stack.