Double-Up Secrets #5

Double-Up Secrets #5: Time your all-in

At some point in these double-up tournaments you're bound to find yourself with a small stack and in need of at least stealing the blinds. And sometimes, regardless of how patient you've been, the cards just aren't cooperating. You haven't seen a decent hand in ages and you're getting desperate. Hopefully you still have enough chips left to make at least some of the other players take notice when you push all-in.

It won't happen all the time, it may not even happen often, but sometimes you'll find the players in the blinds have fairly comfortable stacks -- well situated in the top five -- but not so comfortable that you are of no concern. If your stack is big enough to move them out of that comfort zone if they call your all-in and you win, that's the situation you want.

If you aren't getting cards and are forced to make a move, you're just hoping everybody is going to fold to your bet. By timing your move so the players in the best position to make the call are ones that you can hurt, you maximize your chances of getting the folds you want.

Here's an example from a recent tournament. Blinds are 125/250/25. I'm the small stack with T1085. The next closest stacks have T1535 and T1615. It folds to me in the cutoff. I've got a lowly 98o. The button has T1940. He's likely to not be playing anything but super-premium hands. The SB is the big stack with T5780. He's a concern because he can double me up and barely notice it. The BB has T2520 left after putting in the blind.

In this situation, the BB is comfortable, but calling my all-in and losing would knock him right out of that comfort zone and make him the small stack. If he's a smart player, he's unlikely to call with anything less than AA or KK.

Pushing all-in here with 98o is clearly a gamble, but by evaluating the situation you can maximize the odds that your gamble will pay off.

I pushed and it folded around. I was no longer the small stack and the blinds were about to hit the other two small stacks. Three hands later it was all over. The well timed push with junk was just what I needed to survive until the big stack could knock somebody else out.

The same kind of thing certainly applies to normal tournaments as well, but the comfort zone that exists in the double-up tournaments isn't quite the same in regular tournaments. Players are always looking to acquire more chips and will be far more likely to call what looks like a desperation all-in with mediocre holdings. The threat of dropping out of that comfort zone is what makes this more likely to succeed in the double-ups.