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Poker Tips
What To Do When You Have 10-15 Big Blinds In a Poker Tournament?
Some poker players get down to 12 big blinds in a tournament and start opening all-in preflop, thinking that they don’t have enough chips to properly play postflop. Postflop play may be different, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good rule to open with an all-in preflop.
Opening All-in Preflop With Monsters Has No Value
Suppose you have AA and open all-in to 12 big blinds. Tournament poker players put short chip stacks who are all-in on a wide range of hands. However, even if you have the lowest chip stack in the tournament, your opponents won’t think of you as a true short stack if you have 12 big blinds. Your poker opponents typically won’t put you on a wide range of hands. Even if they do, most won’t gamble 12 big blinds. You won’t get any value from your AA by opening all-in to 12 big blinds.
No Point in Opening All-in As a Steal
With a stack of around 5 big blinds, you can justify opening all-in with any two cards provided that you have substantial fold equity. The 1.5 big blinds to be stolen represent a large fraction of your stack, and you don’t have much more time in the tournament to wait for a good opportunity. Meanwhile, with 12 big blinds, the 1.5 big blinds in the pot represents a small fraction of your chip stack, and you have enough time to wait for a better opportunity.
Raising Preflop to 3 Big Blinds
With 10 to 15 big blinds, you can consider raising preflop to 3 big blinds with premium hands or as a steal from late position. If your raise is called, use all your preflop skills to best determine what to do with your 7 -12 big blinds stack. If you miss the flop, determine if you should bluff. If you hit the flop, deduce the best way to get value from your poker hand.
Opening all-in is a poker don’t, but pushing all-in when other chips have entered the pot can be good. Suppose you have AK in early position. Instead of raising to 3 big blinds and risking playing a pot for your tournament life out of position, consider limp-reraising. Against aggressive tournament poker players, limp reraise with all hands ahead of their distributions (stuff like AT and 66).
Also look for opportunities to limp and outmaneuver your tournament foes postflop as opposed to preflop, especially if you have the potential to get involved in a pot against one or two highly predictable opponents postflop. Limping can be a very powerful poker play, despite what the tight-aggressive pundits might say.
Being a successful tournament poker player requires mastery of playing the 10 -15 big blinds stack. Become comfortable with lines of play besides opening all-in preflop, and your tournament results will improve dramatically. Additional tricks exist, some which are quite necessary for taking your tournament results to the next level, but everything covered here is part of the foundation necessary for solid 10 -15 big blinds tournament poker play.
By Tony Guerrera
- Poker Expert
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