Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy: 5 BIG Blinds and Below

 Short Stack Poker Tournament Strategy - 5 Big Blinds or Below

Many players become anxious when their stack exceeds 15 big blinds or less. Relax, it's best to let go of your anxiety when you reach 15 big blinds or below. With a stack that short, playing poker is easy. Instead of needing to read players and figure out odds, you can just decide whether to push or fold. This stage of a tournament is where I can provide you with as much information as I have about a poker "system".

5 Big Blinds

This size stack is too small to raise and fold. However, it's too deep to lose your entire stack on bad holdings. Keep your hands premium in early position. Don't waste AQ offsuit or KQ suited underneath the gun. Stay away from smaller pairs. You can make it very open in late position but you should not go too crazy if there is no ante. If you have the right opponent, you can raise or limp with Aces/Kings if it is near certain that it will rise behind you. Then you can go all-in when you get the action back. You can push your big pairs with your smaller chips if you have doubts.

Ten Big Blinds & Under

Poker is now easy. You can play unlimited poker with this stack. Independent Chip Modeling (Nash Equilibrium) allows you to resolve any situation, regardless of how many hands are left behind. What is ICM and Nash Equilibrium? Chris "Fox", a professional player of cards, and myself did the heavy lifting to put our charts on pushfoldcharts.com. Visit pushfoldcharts.com to review the charts or to buy one for your trip to the card rooms. You will find all the information that you need about what cards to push and which cards to fold.

Although the charts provide you with the maximum ranges of possibilities, there are still adjustments that you should make.

The Six-Big Blind Rule

You can raise higher than the charts if you reach six large blinds. You can raise as high as six big blinds and expect people to fold. If you drop below that amount, people will start to call loosely with any two cards and the potential profit from people folding (which are the most important part in these small stack calculations) drops down to zero.

Under Five Big Blinds

If you have a stack of less than five big blinds, your chances of getting called are high. You should still push here due to pot odds and because there are still some opponents who fold their trash incorrectly. Your choices can be affected by the fact that you may get called. If you have a truly trash hand (seven-deuce onsuit comes to mind), you might fold to try and get it in the first hand. You may fold if you don't have an ante and can see a lot more hands without paying anything, Pushing and praying is the best way to win most hands if there are no antes.

Table Image

It is a good idea to play fast in tournaments early on so that people respect your raises. A successful push/fold strategy is based on the potential profit that people will fold, also known as Fold Equity. You can convince your opponents to only put all your chips into the pot with a nut-hand hand and your tournament equity goes way up. short handed texas holdem short strategies that dont work