Chuck Blount on poker: Stay ahead
of blinds and stay in the fight
San Antonio Express-News
Blount It's not listed on any stone tablet as a commandment,
but the biggest sin in tournament poker is when a player allows himself
or herself to get blinded out of the competition without putting up
a fight.
The nature of tournament poker forces a structure where
the blinds increase at predetermined levels. The goal of any tournament
is to eventually crown a winner, and without escalating blinds, it
could in theory go on for weeks or months.
Blinds jump in predictable fashion. They might start
out at something like $25/50. The next level will be $50/100 and the
level after that will be $75/150 and so on. The levels might last
anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours.
The escalation of the blinds keeps the action flowing,
and the players who are unable to pick up the key pots will quickly
hit the chopping block inside of a few levels.
One of the brutal aspects to tournament poker is that
a player can often go dozens of hands without getting any playable
hands. They might continuously see hands such as 7s-3c, or the times
they have something marginal with 8c-9c, the action is so heavy before
it gets to them, the only choice is to fold.
There might be position issues, where the one time they
do get a hand like Ac-Jd you are the first person to act with eight
players behind you. A large pot might have been lost earlier in the
tournament, and the chip effects still sting from that.
Dry runs happen and it can be a hopeless feeling when
in the middle of one. However, no matter how dire the circumstances,
a player usually has one final bullet to fire before succumbing to
the blinds and earning a ticket to renewed poker life.
In any poker tournament (especially no-limit), once
a player gets near 10 big blinds they are officially considered short
stacked. When this happens, the warning bells need to be ringing because
the window to play long drawn-out poker is officially over.
It is now time to selectively pick a hand and shove
it all in the middle. It doesn't have to be a powerhouse such as Ks-Kc
(although that would be nice), just something playable where both
cards work together. A hand with Qs-2d wouldn't be a great choice,
but Qs-10s would be fine with the straight and flush possibilities.
With 10 big blinds, a player still has enough chips
behind him to get players to fold to an aggressive all-in bet to pick
up the blinds. The traditional bet in a no-limit Hold 'Em tournament
is three or four times the big blind, so to call 10 requires a quality
hand most players won't hold in their hand.
And even if you are called, your hand likely will contain
a half-dozen or so live outs and it won't be much of an underdog.
The Qs-10c will beat Ac-Kd about 40 percent of the time.
If the short stack picks up the blinds and possible
antes with the all-in push, then they have earned the chips for another
orbit around the table. If they are called and double up their stack
to 20 or more big blinds, then they are back in contention to win
the tournament or make it into the money.
The danger of allowing your chips to dwindle down below
a stack of 10 big blinds is obvious: More players will call you when
you don't have enough money to harm them. Players who wait until they
are down four or five blinds are waving the white flag.
It's much better to go out fighting when there is life
than wilt away to the rail and succumb to a most certain poker tournament
death.