Double-Up Secrets #4

Today I'm going to write about a topic that's not just a secret for double-up tournaments, it's treated kind of like a poker secret in general. It's often practiced by the pros in tournaments but seldom discussed. So let's keep today's topic just among ourselves.

Double-Up Secret #4: Collusion

Perhaps "collusion" is a bit too pejorative. Let's call it players acting in their own collective best interest.

The situations where this might come into play occur fairly often in the very latest stages of double-up tournaments. (The same concept will often apply in any tournament where the top X players all get the same prize and to a lesser extent in any tournament where the prize steps start getting big.)

Say there are two or three big stacks with T3000 or more and one small stack with less than T500. Say blinds are 150/300/30 and there are six players left. One of the big stacks limps and the shortie pushes all-in. It's almost a lock the limper is going to call since he's getting more than 4:1 on the call. The proper play for any of the big stacks yet to act is to make the call, regardless of what cards they hold. If the original big stack has a brain, he will call. Then, and here's the "collective best interest" part, everyone checks it all the way down. If you caught quads on the flop, you still check it all the way down.

There are two key points here. First, the shortie doesn't have enough chips to put much of a hurt on any of the big stacks. Second, and this is a repeated theme, the "enemy" here is the shortie. It is in the collective best interest of all the remaining players to do whatever maximizes the chances of eliminating the final player. The shortie is all-in, so he's going to the showdown no matter what. The best odds for the other players to defeat him is to have as many hands as possible going against him.

All too often I see this kind of situation arise, and then one of the bigger stacks catches something on the flop and can't resist the temptation of betting his hand. He's lost sight of the true goal -- survival. In this case survival is best achieved by eliminating that last player. And that is best served by having everyone hang around until the showdown.

A similar scenario that will often come up is when one player is forced all-in by the blinds or the ante. Be observant for this and, if it doesn't cost you most of your chips, be sure to call. And pray the players acting behind you know how to act in their own best interest. Again, the proper play is to call and then check it all the way down. Five hands drawing against one have far better odds of coming out on top.

Sometimes that last scenario will arise when there is more than one player yet to be eliminated. The collective best play is still to call and check it down, but you need to watch for shorter stacks who may hit the flop big and decide their personal best interest is served by pushing all-in. For this reason it may be best to only make the original call if you won't miss those chips (they're a tiny part of your stack) or you can afford to call the second biggest stack without serious damage to your stack.

In any of these situations there's always the possibility of some idiot who doesn't know the proper play. He'll catch on the flop and put in a big bet. In this case, all you can do is scream at the screen, shake your head in disgust, do what makes the most sense to conserve your chips, and take solace in the certainty that karma will catch up to him eventually.

There will sometimes be other situations where there will be an opportunity for players to act in concert toward their own collective best interest. In Double-Up Secrets #1 I wrote about a tournament I played where somebody built a big stack and then sat out.

Ordinarily, given the size of the player's stack, this wouldn't be a bad idea. In this case, however, the chips moved around among the smaller stacks for quite a while and this player was eventually in serious danger of blinding out. I was monitoring his stack size and noticed when it was getting low. In fairness to some of the other players, PokerSnore overwrites the player's stack size with "Sitting Out" when the player isn't at the table, so you had to hover over his spot to have his stack size pop up. But keeping track of the size of the other players' stacks, even if they're sitting out, is part of situational awareness. Everyone should be doing this at all times.

With just one more player to be eliminated, it became clear to me that the best course of action for the active players was to simply fold to the BB as quickly as possible. This would move the blinds around and more rapidly deplete the stack of the player sitting out. Sadly, not everyone caught on to this fact. Eventually this player was blinded out and eliminated, but we had to sit through a number of completely unnecessary hands being played out because some players were either unaware of the situation or couldn't figure out for themselves the proper strategy.

I want to make it clear that this was not a situation of someone who was unavoidably detained and fully intended to return. It was clear he sat out on this table as a strategy toward winning. It removed the temptation to play marginal hands and allowed him to do other things while coasting to a win. His sitting out was a strategy, and as such is subject to being taken advantage of just like any other strategy.

At any rate, the larger point is to maintain situational awareness and keep looking for spots where you can further the collective interests of those players most likely to win, which hopefully includes you.