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A Winning Strategy for Fast-Structure, Multi-Table, No-Limit Hold’em Tournaments

This book offers a specific method for playing fast-structure, multi-table, no-limit Hold’em tournaments. These tournaments have the following characteristics:

 1. The tournament consists of fields of around eighty to 400 players.

 2. Buy-ins range from $25 to $1,000, with the majority being around $100 to $500.

 3. Players start with a chip stack that is at least thirty times the opening Big Blind; for example, a Big Blind of $50 and a chip stack of at least $1500.

 4. The tournament lasts for about four to seven hours on average.

The methods described in the following chapters are designed specifically for tournaments of this type. They are not applicable (though elements of them might be) to Sit and Go tournaments (one or many tables), One Table Satellite tournaments, or Multi-Day, Slow-Structure tournaments. The latter include tournaments that are often televised, such as the Main Event at the World Series of Poker or the bigger events on the World Poker Tour or Professional Poker Tour.

PLAYING IN BIG, SLOW-STRUCTURE TOURNAMENTS

If you play in, or plan to play in, these big, slow-structure events, then what you will learn in this book will be of benefit and a good foundation for playing in bigger tournaments. But you will need additional skills that are beyond the scope of this book. These big events are really meant for the most highly skilled players, and players like this will enjoy a considerable overlay because most of those who participate in these events have no idea how to play in them so as to maximize their chances of winning or even finishing in the money. Even in these types of tournaments when the field becomes very large, numbering thousands of players, the luck elements increase. In slow-structure tournaments with smaller fields, say 100 to 500 players, skilled players can do consistently well. This is why some skilled professionals like Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, T.J. Cloutier, and other notables have been consistently able to win over the years. They enter a lot of events, they understand what it takes to win tournaments, and they play in events that favor skill over luck. I should add that when some of these players were at the peak of their powers, they were perhaps some of the very few who knew and understood how to play tournaments well. The knowledge gap is closing rapidly and to win consistently, winning players of the past will have to adjust to current conditions. Some have already done so, while others are slower to adapt and their recent results reflect this. However, this is all the subject of another book!

Frankly, I know of no book in print at this writing that offers completely sound advice on how best to play in slow-structure tournaments, under current conditions. The best books available (many of which are credible efforts) all have flaws. Books that I recommend, that at least offer useful, though sometimes incomplete or flawed information, include those by Dan Harrington (though I believe he places far too much emphasis on card selection and is generally too conservative), Doyle Brunson (great book but somewhat outdated), Erick Lindgren (up to date but not detailed enough to be practical), and T.J. Cloutier (again, outdated and rather superficial). Some of the current tournament superstars are great players but not, it seems, great writers, teachers, or analysts as none has yet penned a useful and remotely complete volume. Perhaps they reason that it is better to play and win the big bucks rather than share their secrets and earn a poker author’s pittance. Very wise!

So if you understand the limitation of this book and its method, I will share with you a series of strategies than can serve you well if correctly applied. I run into many players who have entered many tournaments over the years and have never finished in the money. Some of these are good cash game players, but they do not understand how to adjust their game to tournament conditions. They erroneously believe that the same game will serve them under all conditions. This is patently false. It is also an error to believe that if you are a winning tournament player you can therefore dominate in cash games. Again, lack of understanding, hubris, and arrogance are to blame, and many good tournament players have lost a good chunk of change in cash games. So in using the methods I describe you should know how to select your field of battle. What follows is a personal recommendation about what I believe to be the ideal tournament for the methods described.

THE IDEAL FAST-STRUCTURE TOURNAMENT?

So is there such a thing as the ideal fast-structure tournament? Maybe not ideal, but there are definitely characteristics I would look for that reward skilled play rather than make a tournament a mere luck-fest. Here are three factors I look for before I plunk down my hard-earned cash and give up my even more valuable time to enter a tournament.

1 A field of 80 to 350 players. In my opinion, when fields have too few players the prizes are really too small to justify the cost of entry and the time it takes to get to the final table. I have seen tournaments with as few as thirty players or so and with buy-ins of $60 last hours. Depending upon payout, the top prize might be only $600 with second place paying $300 or less. This does not seem a good use of my poker time. If I win I want a bigger payout than this and so should you. Conversely, a field of over 350 in a fast-structure tournament can make for some impressive prizes but it also begins to cross the threshold where luck is a more significant factor than skill. I have seen some fast-structure tournaments where the field is as high as 1,500 players. The online free rolls often have more. Eventually as the Blinds increase and antes become larger, there is no real poker left to play. Luck wins out. To some extent all fast-structure tournaments are like this in their final stages, but when that occurs you want to be at or very close to the final table. If it becomes a luck-fest with, say, 150 players still remaining, the chances of winning even a large prize do not adequately reward the skilled player.

2 Buy-ins of $100 to $300. With a field of this size I like the buy-in to be large enough that if I win or make a top-place finish, I feel that I have got a pleasing return on my investment. I prefer not to spend more than $500 on an entry fee because even for the skilled player, fast-structure tournaments have a high element of luck. It is easily possible to play twenty such tournaments without a money finish (though this would probably indicate that there is a flaw in your approach), and maybe longer before you capture a top-three prize. If you play these tournaments skillfully however, making the money can be a regular event and a top-three finish can occur as often as once every twenty to twenty-five tournaments or so. To the unskilled you will appear to be “a very lucky SOB.” You will know otherwise. Most times you will still bust-out but when wins do come they will more than compensate for this. If with fields of eighty to 350 players you are not placing in the money at least one in fifteen times or so, then you are probably doing something wrong. The reason that you can do this well is because so many other players are clueless about correct fast-structure tournament strategy. Of course, you can have runs where you win more frequently and you can have extended periods where you only make low-place finishes or finish out of the money entirely. However, when you do make it to the final three or win, you want the prize to be large enough to compensate for the many times you make a low-money or no-money finish. The strategies I recommended in this book will give you the best shot at a high-money finish but you cannot avoid busting out many times. It is the very nature of tournament play as currently structured.

3 Stack size and Blinds. Many tournaments seem to start with a stack that is about thirty times the opening Big Blind. Personally, this is the minimum I find acceptable. Less than that and the element of luck is going to be the dominant factor in the tournament very quickly. Ideally, I like to see the stack size at least fifty times the opening Big Blind. This enables you to play some real poker. The larger your chip stack in relation to the Blinds, the more options you have as to how to play a hand and vice versa. Since more skilled players implicitly have wider playing choices, bigger stacks in relation to the Blinds favor players who know how to take advantage of them. Of course, stack size and starting Big Blind size are not the only factors. How quickly the Blinds rise, and when antes appear are also important. In some tournaments the Blinds rise as fast as every fifteen minutes, others much more slowly, as long as half an hour to forty-five minutes. This makes a big difference. Of course, all fast-structure tournaments are going to finish in less than a day and it is rare to find a tournament that lasts more than ten hours. Recently some casinos are promoting “Super Stack tournaments” where players begin with stacks of 100 or even 200 times the Big Blind and the opening rounds are as long as forty-five minutes or an hour. These events do favor the more highly skilled and are perceived as such, so the casinos that offer them often charge high entry fees. However, they still have to get them over inside of a few hours, so what generally happens is that antes appear after the fourth, fifth, or sixth rounds, and grow fast. The overall effect is that these tournaments accelerate rapidly at a certain point and then the play becomes just about identical to that of any other multi-table fast-structure tournament that starts with smaller stacks. Arnold Snyder, in his book The Poker Tournament Formula and his website, has tables and tools to help you calculate the speed of a tournament. Some mathematically inclined posters at Snyder’s site have even created software tools for determining the velocity and acceleration rate of tournaments. These are fascinating and worth looking at, but in my mind are overkill when used to determine the desirability of playing in a specific tournament. I prefer to play in tournaments where the Blinds are rising no more than twenty minutes and the antes do not appear until at least the fourth round.

So in summary my personal ideal fast-structure multi-table tournament is one where the entry fee is $100–$300, the field consists of one-hundred to 250 players, the starting stacks are fifty times the Big Blind, the Blinds rise every half an hour or so, and antes do not appear until after the fourth level at least. I stress that these are my personal preferences.

Probably some astute readers will be able to persuade me that this is not ideal and that there may be a better mathematical formula for working out what ideal is. However, practically, if you are trying to decide if a tournament is worth your time, money, and effort I believe these three guidelines will prove useful.

These guidelines are meant for tournaments taking place in land-based casinos and card rooms. I have played in at least ten times as many Internet tournaments as land-based ones. This is because I live at least two and a half hours from the nearest casino and so have many more opportunities to play online than on land. Despite this fact I prefer land-based over online, because when I can see players, I feel I have another arsenal of weapons at my command. I can read tells, and observe when a player is tired, upset, emotional, jubilant, over-confident, arrogant, sleepy, drunk, upset, frustrated, or angry. These emotions affect how people play and to some extent how I play against them. I can see none of this online. Again, this is a personal preference and online tournaments are abundant, frequent, varied, and many offer entry fees far lower and prizes far larger than many of the smaller tournaments offered by land-based casinos.

Online, a tournament with a buy-in of $100–$500 will tend to attract a far higher caliber of player than one with a similar buy-in at a land-based casino. Internet card rooms frequently offer tournaments that range in buy-in from $5 to $50 with the Blinds rising every nine to twelve minutes or so. The lack of a physical deal means that more hands can be played per tournament hour so tournaments of this type are analogous in playing style, player type, and structure to the multi-table tournaments described earlier in land-based casinos with larger buy-ins. Some Internet card rooms offer very slow-structure tournaments for buy-ins of less than $100 and often less than $50. These provide an opportunity to get the feel of, and practice strategies and tactics for the high-profile, high-buy-in, slow–structure tournaments I described earlier; the glamour events of poker. If you want to play in these you would do well to practice in these online tournaments first. It is not of course exactly the same but it is a very low-cost simulation.

The General Method of Winning Tournament Play Used in This Book

This book offers you a three-layered method of tournament play. This method will be your default strategy. You will only modify it if you get a specific read on a player indicating that this read overrides all other considerations, or if you are in the latter stages of the tournament and have amassed a very large stack.

I’ll deal with how you handle very large stacks later in the text. Regarding getting a specific read on a player, let’s say you are on the Button and you have a pair of jacks. There has been one standard raise by a player from early position whom you have pegged as very tight and conservative. You are almost certain that he will only raise from this seat with AA, KK, or AKs. Do not re-raise with your pocket jacks. Instead you could call and see if you flop a set, or if he is willing to bet on the Flop, or you may take the more conservative route of folding. I stress that to make this modification you must know your opponent very well. Otherwise stick to the method as described. The method assumes you have a competitive stack of over thirty Big Blinds or over forty if the round includes antes. If your stack dwindles you will need to modify your play, as I will describe.

The first and most important layer of tournament play addresses positional plays. These form the bedrock of your playing strategy. The first question you will ask about position pre-Flop is:

CAN I PROFITABLY PLAY FROM THIS POSITION?

This is an easy question to answer, but the answer may at first surprise you: not unless you are on the Button, in the Cut-Off seat, or one to the right of the Cut-Off. These three seats are the only seats that you will ever play a hand in unless one of the two rules (concerning stack size and cards) below modifies that decision!

Astute readers will grasp that cards are not paramount, position is. This may seem like poker heresy to some of you, and for cash play you may have a point (though cash players frequently underestimate the power of position too), but this is not cash play. In fast-structure tournaments you do not have the luxury of waiting for good cards, because they do not occur frequently enough. You have to take advantage of position so that you can maintain a competitive stack despite having a run of bad cards. No player can be successful in tournament play on the strength of cards alone.

Grasping the importance of the above point alone will take you a long way toward a winning tournament mind-set.

If you win a tournament approximately 20 percent of your stack will have been won as the result of positional plays alone. Also, these regular position plays will keep you ahead of the Blinds and help you grow a large stack. This is important because chip accumulation is vital to success, and in a fast-structure tournament chip accumulation is of necessity fast and furious.

If you are in one of the three key seats you can potentially make a positional play. The next question if you are in one of these seats is:

HAVE THERE BEEN ANY LIMPERS OR RAISERS OR HAS THE ACTION BEEN FOLDED TO ME?

If the action is on you and there are no callers when you are in one of these three seats, you are going to raise with any two cards. For reasons that will become apparent later when you read the problems concerning position (and you will read and study them, won’t you, not just gloss over them?) the cards you hold are completely irrelevant. Your position is what’s important.

Of course if there are callers or raisers then you have another decision. So the next question, if there has been action and you are in one of the only playable (from a positional standpoint) seats is:

HAS ANY PLAYER RAISED?

If there has been a raise, you will need to determine whether your cards are playable against a raiser, or re-raiser. For that you will need to consider your cards and your stack size as well as your position.

If there has been any action you will fold every hand (except the few to be listed in the sections below) in the Cut-Off seat and the seat to the right of the Cut-Off seat.

If you are on the Button, however, you will call any number of limpers. You will also call with any two cards if there is only one raiser who has made a standard raise of three to five times the Big Blind.

This will constitute your basic positional strategy and you will only modify it under certain conditions that will be highlighted in later chapters.

Small Blind and Big Blind Play

The only exceptions to these rules of positional play are when you are in the Small Blind or Big Blind. Remember, from a positional point of view these are terrible seats as you will be in the worst seat for all subsequent rounds. However, the positive (and complicating) factor is that you have a half bet or full bet in the pot. In fact without this, play from the Blinds would be obvious. You would be folding the vast majority of the time.

SMALL BLIND PRE-FLOP BASIC POSITIONAL PLAY: Call any number of limpers and fold to a raise.

The basic idea here is to take advantage of the fact that you are getting exceptional pot odds, at least 3:1. You are hoping for a very favorable Flop, because from this seat you have no positional advantage whatsoever.

BIG BLIND PRE-FLOP BASIC PLAY: Fold to any raise except one from the Small Blind; call a standard raise (three to five times the Big Blind) from the Small Blind; if the Small Blind limps raise three to five times the size of the Big Blind.

The idea here is that you have position on your only opponent and can use this advantage on the Flop and beyond. If the Small Blind is aggressive and you know he will take a shot at you heads up, you should occasionally re-raise if he raises, then bet the Flop if he checks. Don’t get too carried away with this play, but used selectively it can tame the aggressive Small Blind player who will always attempt to steal your Big Blind.

Stack Size

The second layer of this method concerns stack size.

All positional plays assume you have at least a competitive stack size. Remember the definition of a competitive stack? It is one that is over thirty times the size of the Big Blind of the current round or forty times if the current round includes antes. If it falls below this then how you play is now governed by the fact that you no longer have a competitive stack. You are in danger of elimination and you must make plays in an effort to get back to at least a competitive stack. There are four levels of stack size and you must know at all times what your stack size is. Here are the categories:

 1. Competitive: More than thirty Big Blinds or more than forty if the round includes antes

 2. Short: More than twenty and fewer than thirty-one Big Blinds (thirty and forty-one if the round includes antes)

 3. Super Short: More than ten and fewer than twenty-one Big Blinds (twenty and thirty-one if the round includes antes)

 4. Critical: Fewer than ten Big Blinds (fewer than twenty if the round includes antes)

The key idea to grasp is that the shorter your stack size the faster you must play. Most players only begin to modify their play when their stack size reaches or drops below the critical level. This is a huge mistake and one that you will be taking advantage of. Many of these players will have a survival mentality, hoping to hit a big hand when another player hits a hand not quite as big. Then they hope to get action and double through. This precise event happens too rarely in fast-structure tournaments to form the basis of a credible playing strategy. Having recognized the current level of your chip stack, you then make your plays based upon hand selection, bet size, and timing. Basically as your stack drops in size you must bet more (proportionally) of your stack and get your chips into the pot earlier to maximize your chances of getting back to a competitive stack size.

So the key question you must ask yourself before the start of each new deal is:

WHAT IS MY STACK SIZE?

The answer to this question, combined with your position, is going to govern exactly how you play the cards you are dealt. You must know your stack size before the cards of the new hand are dealt.

Card Selection

Having established position and stack size as being of primary and secondary importance in your decision making, we now come to the next question you must ask yourself, which is

WHAT CARDS DO I HOLD PRE-FLOP?

Your positional plays are going to be modified at certain times by the cards you are dealt. How you play these cards, that is, how much you bet if you have a playable hand, is going to be governed by your stack size and the action ahead of you. I shall describe the plays from Late to Early position. I do it this way because the range of hands you play in Late position and how you play them are more significant than the hands you play in Middle and Early position. If you are playing correctly the vast majority of your plays will be made from Late position.

In summary, you ask two questions before the start of the betting round:

 1. What is my stack size?

 2. What is my position?

You will only modify your positional plays if you hold certain cards, so if you are not in one of the key positional play seats and/or your stack size has slipped below the competitive level you need to ask a third question:

WHAT ARE MY POCKET (PRE-FLOP) CARDS?

Now you combine these factors as below.

IF YOU HAVE A COMPETITIVE CHIP STACK AS DEFINED ABOVE YOU WILL PLAY PRE-FLOP AS FOLLOWS:

LATE POSITION: The Button, the Cut-Off seat and the seat to the right of the Cut-Off seat

 If first in, raise with any two cards.

 If you are on the Button (this play applies only to the Button) and you are not first in, limp with any two cards. You can also limp if any player has made a standard raise of three to five times the Big Blind.

 Raise any number of limpers, or if there has been a raise, re-raise with AA-JJ and AK (suited or non-suited). Raise a minimum of three times the Big Blind or, if you re-raise, re-raise the size of the pot. You can vary your play by raising as much as five times the Big Blind. Raise the equivalent of one Big Blind for every limper, for example, you have QQ and there are four limpers before the action gets to you. Raise at least seven times the Big Blind; three times the Big Blind plus one for each limper equals seven. Note: If you make a re-raise and a player raises all-in, call with AA and KK only if his stack size is more than two-thirds your size, equivalent to yours, or he has you covered. If his stack is one-third the size of your stack or less, you can call the all-in bet with AA-JJ and AK. Otherwise, fold. For example, you will fold QQ to an all-in bet if your opponent’s stack is bigger than one-third yours and he moved all-in to a raise or re-raise.

 Call any standard raise of three to five times the Big Blind with any pocket pair as well as AQ, AJ, AT (suited or non-suited), A9 (suited), KQ (suited), QJ (suited), JT (suited), T9 (suited).

 Fold everything else.

MIDDLE POSITION: The next three seats to the right of late position as defined above

 If first in, raise with AA-77; also, if first in, raise with AK, AQ, AJ (both suited and non-suited) plus KQ (suited) QJ (suited) or JT (suited).

 If not first in, raise any number of limpers with AA-JJ and AK (suited or not).

 If the pot has been raised three to five times (standard raise) the Big Blind re-raise with AA, KK, QQ, and AK.

 Call any standard raise with QQ-TT as well as AQ, AJ (suited or non suited), and AT (suited), A9 (suited), KQ (suited), QJ (suited), or JT (suited).

 Fold everything else.

EARLY POSITION: The remaining seats, including the Blinds

 If first in, raise with AA-99; also, if first in, raise with AK, AQ, and AJ (both suited and non-suited).

 If not first in, raise any limpers with AA-JJ and AK.

 If the pot has been raised, re-raise with AA and KK and be prepared to call an all-in bet with these hands if the original raiser moves allin.

 Call a raise with QQ-JJ, AK (suited or unsuited), AQ (suited or unsuited).

 Otherwise, fold to a raise from an early position player.

 Fold everything else.

The key point here is that your Early position means that you cannot tussle with other players unless you have premium cards and there has been no action. If there has been action you want to play fast and strongly with your best hands and get out of the way with anything else. Less-than-premium hands played from Early position, especially against a raiser, can be tremendous chip drainers.

If you study the above highly condensed basic strategy for half an hour or so, you will easily remember it. If you don’t find it easy to remember at first, fear not, gentle reader, as the problems later in the text will help you remember.

Important Note: If you have read any of my other books you will notice that this is a much looser strategy than anything I have previously suggested. However, what I suggest here is entirely appropriate for fast-structure tournaments. To do well in fast-structure tournaments you must play fast! You must also play aggressively. If you don’t you cannot hope to gather chips quickly enough to have any chance of a money finish. The rising Blinds will gobble up your stack and eventually leave you with few playing options. The above recommendations will not work in cash games. If you want to play in cash games, see my starting hand recommendations in No-Limit Hold’em Hand by Hand.

Non-Competitive Stacks

Once your stack slips below a certain level, it is non-competitive. Practically, this means two thing: First, you are increasingly in danger of busting out of the tournament (obviously the smaller your stack, the more imminent the danger) and second, you are not able to use the full range of potential plays. The second point is extremely important. Small stacks in tournaments cripple poker skills. As an extreme example, you may be the most skillful player in the world, but if when the next Big Blind comes around you cannot cover it, you have only one move left: move all-in. All your poker knowledge and skills are useless because of your stack size.

By contrast, if your stack is larger than any of your opponents’ in a tournament scenario, you can select from any poker skill you possess. All options are open. This is why when your stack becomes short you must do whatever is necessary to return it to a healthy, competitive status.

In a fast-structure tournament your stack can move from being healthy to critical surprisingly quickly. In most such tournaments you are rarely very deeply stacked in relation to the Blinds and a couple of losing confrontations that go to a showdown can cripple you in double-quick time. Most players do not recognize soon enough when they must modify their play due to the fact that they no longer possess a competitive stack. They usually wait for it to become critical before they are willing to do anything different at all.

If you are to stand any chance of high money finishes you cannot behave like this. Instead, you must quickly recognize when your stack is no longer competitive and make the required adjustments. You must essentially play faster. Of course the term “non-competitive” refers to any stack size below thirty-one Big Blinds at the current level, but I have listed above three distinct levels of non-competitive stacks. Now I am going to give you pre-Flop requirements for playing these varying stack sizes, based on position. Naturally, as your stack gets smaller, position becomes less of a concern, because ultimately with a very small stack you only have one move left, push all-in. There can be no positional advantage or disadvantage after that.

IF YOU HAVE A SHORT STACK—SORE THAN TWENTY AND FEWER THAN THIRTY-ONE BIG BLINDS (THIRTY AND FORTY-ONE IF THE ROUND INCLUDES ANTES)—YOU WILL PLAY AS FOLLOWS:

LATE POSITION: You have twenty-five to thirty Big Blinds (almost competitive).

 If first in, raise with any pocket pair. Also raise with any of the following, suited or non-suited, AK, AQ, AJ, and AT. You can also raise with KQ (suited), QJ (suited), JT (suited), and T9 (suited). You can limp with AA and KK hoping to push all-in if a player behind you raises. However, only do this if you are almost certain that one or more players behind you is aggressive and will in fact raise. If you have any doubts, raise yourself. If you are re-raised you can always push all-in at that point, but ideally you do not want to be a pre-Flop limper with pocket aces and pocket kings.

 If you are not first in, raise any limpers with AA-88, AK, AQ, and AJ.

 If there is a raise ahead of you re-raise all-in with AA-JJ and AK (suited or non-suited).

 Fold everything else.

Note that your non-competitive stack means position plays are a much higher risk so you need cards as well as positional advantage. This is an example of where diminishing stack size affects playing options.

LATE POSITION: You have twenty-one to twenty-four Big Blinds.

 If first in, raise with any pocket pair. Also raise with any of the following, suited or non-suited, AK, AQ, and AJ. Also KQ (suited), QJ (suited), and JT (suited).

 If not first in, raise limpers with AA-88, plus suited or non-suited AK, AQ, and AJ.

 If the pot has been raised and re-raised, move all-in with AA-JJ and AK.

 Fold everything else.

Note that your stack size here means that you must gamble with weaker cards than is ideal in an effort to get back to a competitive stack size.

MIDDLE POSITION: You have twenty-five to thirty Big Blinds (almost competitive).

 If first in, raise with QQ-88. Also raise with the following, suited or non-suited: AK, AQ, and AJ. With AA-KK, limp and move all-in if there is a raise behind you. This is a risk worth taking from middle position as more players behind have the potential to raise. If the table has been very passive, do not make this move but instead raise five times the Big Blind with pocket aces and pocket kings.

 If not first in, raise or re-raise all-in with AA-TT and AK (suited or non-suited).

 Fold everything else.

MIDDLE POSITION: You have twenty to twenty-four Big Blinds.

 If first in, raise all-in with AA-77. Plus raise all-in with the following both suited and non-suited, AK, AQ, AJ, and also KQ (suited), QJ (suited), JT (suited).

 If not first in, raise or re-raise all-in with AA-99, and the following, suited or non-suited: AK, AQ, and AJ. Fold everything else.

Can you see that as your stack gets shorter you must commit your chips more quickly and with weaker cards? Your stack still has some fold equity because losing to you can still do damage to another player. You are somewhat selective about the hands you play, but if you choose to enter a pot you must play fast.

EARLY POSITION

 If first in, raise with QQ-88 plus suited or non-suited AK, AQ, and AJ. Limp with AA and KK and move all-in if raised. See my comments in Middle Position on Chapter Two concerning this move. Fold everything else.

 If there are limpers or raisers move all-in with AA-TT, AK, and AQ (suited or non-suited). Fold everything else.

IF YOU HAVE A SUPER-SHORT CHIP STACK—MORE THAN TEN AND FEWER THAN TWENTY-ONE BIG BLINDS (TWENTY AND THIRTY-ONE IF THE ROUND INCLUDES ANTES)—YOU WILL PLAY AS FOLLOWS:

LATE POSITION

  If first in move all-in with any two cards.

ANY POSITION

 Move all-in with any of the following regardless of the action: AA-77, plus both suited and non-suited AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, KT, and QJ.

 Fold in all other circumstances.

Though these are not the greatest hands, your stack size means you are forced to take risks. Playing this way will maximize the remaining positional advantage you have in late position and playing this range of cards out of late position will give you some hope of winning in a showdown if called. Your hope is that you will win the Blinds or be playing against only one or two opponents on the Flop and beyond. You are very close to the exit door and must play accordingly in a fast-structure tournament.

IF YOU HAVE A CRITICAL CHIP STACK FEWER THAN TEN BIG BLINDS (FEWER THAN TWENTY IF THE ROUND INCLUDES ANTES), YOU WILL PLAY AS FOLLOWS:

 Move all-in with any hand containing an ace or king, any two picture cards (including tens as a “picture”), T9 (suited), and 98 (suited), regardless of the action or number of players.

 If first in, you should also move all-in with the following both suited and non-suited: Q9, Q8, J9, J8, or T9.

You are almost a tournament corpse at this point. There is little real poker left to play, it is merely a question of selecting a hand and a moment and moving all-in.

Believe it or not, many players wait until they have fewer than ten Big Blinds before modifying their hand selections. There may be some merit to this in a slow-structure tournament, but in a fast-structure tournament, this is pretty much suicide. In a fast-structure tournament, when you are this low on chips, you must make moves in the hope of capturing pots or doubling up as soon as you have any reasonable chance. You do not have the luxury to wait for premium hands or you will simply be eaten up by the rising Blinds.

VARIATIONS ON THE METHOD

If you stick to these recommendations they will be serviceable in the vast majority of circumstances. Occasionally, in tournaments with a slightly slower structure or against opponents whose play you know very well, you may vary from this. Other than those times, if you follow these guidelines you will be a very difficult opponent to play against.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THE REST OF THIS BOOK

The hand problems that follow illustrate examples of following this method and plays you can make on the Flop and beyond, but before we get into the meat of that, here is a guideline and warning.

To succeed in fast-structure, multi-table no-limit Hold’em tournaments, you want to win pots as often as possible without going to the showdown. The further you progress in a hand, the more risks you take and the more times you go to a showdown, the greater the likelihood of mortally damaging your stack or being eliminated. Always remember this and play accordingly.

The idea of the problems is to ensure your thinking is clear and also to drum home these basic lessons. Get these right and you can enjoy an appearance at the final table much more often than probability alone would suggest is fair.

If you like you can jump straight into the problems. However, I suggest you peruse the ten short chapters that precede them, which cover some important points that maybe touched upon but are not fully covered in the problems. These chapters are self contained and you can profitably read them in any order. If you choose to go over the problems first (you impatient soul, you) then come back to them as they will round out your tournament thinking and greatly help you become a winning tournament player.