How many times have you found yourself in a situation where you feel like you have to make a big call with the worst hand due to the size of the pot? Some of these situations are unavoidable, but often a little more planning can help you avoid these spots in the first place.
This week we’re talking about adjusting (usually lowering) your raise size late in tournaments. Most everyone “knows”it is “correct” to raise roughly 3 times the size of the blind when open raising. Late in tournaments however the blinds become so big relative to the stack sizes that a little more careful management might be in order. Let’s look at an example.
You have 12 big blinds at the 1000/2000 level (24k chips) and open up QJs in late position to 6k. The small blind who you know plays fairly tight poker then reraises all in to 20k. Now there is 28k in the pot and it costs you 14k to call. Even though QJs is just 37% to win against a range of 77+, KQ+, the pot is laying you 2-1- which means that you only have to win 33% of the time to make the call correct. You feel that you’ll win 37% of the time on average, so you reluctantly make the call- not thrilled to be putting in most of your hard earned chips as an underdog, but you’re getting the right price and that’s poker.
See what happened? Suddenly your tourney is on the line and you’re only 37% to win the hand! After all that careful play and patience suddenly most of your chips are committed with QJ? Calling the all in was correct in this situation, but it was the lazy play leading up to the call that got us in this spot to begin with!
If we lower our raise size to 4k (online you could try a raise to 4299 to make a bigger appearing bet with the same idea in mind) we get an entirely different outcome in this situation. When the small blind moves in for 20k we will have to call 16k to win a 26k pot- now we are just getting 1.6 to 1 pot odds and it’s a much closer decision, where depending on the range we put him on we can find a fold for our hand and wait for a better opportunity. We avoided pot committing ourselves in advance just by lowering our raise size. If we put him on the same range as before we now have a mathematically correct fold as we are only getting 1.6 to 1 when we should be waiting for 1.7 to 1 or better!
A few points:
When you raise a hand know in advance how you’ll respond to reraises. If you’ll want to fold against certain players try to avoid pot committing yourself- or possibly even just fold the hand and avoid the situation altogether. Estimating your equity against an opponent is tricky business. In the last example we gave him a range of 77+, KQ+, and QJs is 37% against that range. But what if this player will take a stand with any pocket pair? QJs will now have almost %40 equity. What if your opponent is a little more aggressive than that and will go all in with any two broadway cards? QJs has 43.65% against his range now which would make it a SNAP call in both situations above! In a nutshell:
Really think about your raise sizes and tailor them to fit the specific situation and take a little more control over your tourney life! Raising 3 times the blind is just a rule of thumb. Every situation is unique and should be treated as such.
P.S. Don’t forget- if it seems to risky to play the hand in the first place it’s only because we’re forgetting the percentage of time our opponents will fold and give us 3k without any risk at all! That’s growing our stack by more than 10 percent- and the ultimate goal in ANY tourney you play is getting every last chip out there, so don’t miss an opportunity!
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