Hack 38. Know When to Walk Away

In Texas Hold 'Em, when you are "short-stacked," you have only a couple of choices: go all-in right now or go all-in very soon. As you might have guessed, knowing when to make your last stand is all about the odds.

I hear the TV poker commentators talking about how "easy" it is in Texas Hold 'Em tournaments to play when you are short-stacked. They mean it is easy because you don't have many options from which to choose.

The term"short-stacked" can be used in a couple of different ways. Sometimes, it is used to refer to whoever has the fewest chips at the table. Under this use of the term, even if you have thousands of chips and can afford to pay a hundred antes and big blinds, you are short-stacked if everyone else has more chips.

A better definition, which is more applicable to statistics-based decision making, is that you are short-stacked when you can only afford to pay the antes and blinds for a few more times around the table. Under this definition, there is mounting pressure to bet it all and hope to double or triple up and get back in the game. I prefer this use of the term because without pressure to play, being "short-stacked" is not a particularly meaningful situation.

It doesn't feel easy, though, does it, when you are short-stacked and have to go all-in (bet everything you have)? It feels very, very hard for two reasons:

• You are probably not going to win the tournament. You realize that you are down to very few chips and would have to double up several times to get back in the game. Realistically, you doubt that you have much of a chance. That's depressing, and any decision you make when you are sad is difficult.

• One mistake and you are out. There is little margin for error, and it is hard to pull the trigger in such a high-stakes situation.

Applying some basic statistical principles to the decision might help make you feel better. At least you'll have some nonemotional guidelines to follow. When you lose (and you still probably will; you're short-stacked, after all), now you can blame me, or the fates, and not yourself.

Recognizing a Short-Stacked Situation

In tournament settings, at some point you often will have so few chips that you will run out soon. Unless you bet and win soon, you will be blinded outthe cost of the mandatory bets will bleed you dry.

How few chips must you have to be short-stacked? Even if we define short-stacked as having some multiple of the big blind (the larger of two forced bets that you must make on a rotating basis), how many of those big blinds you need is a matter of style, and there is no single correct number. Here are some different perspectives on how many chips you must have in front of you to consider yourself short-stacked.

Twelve times the big blind or less

Though you could play quite a while longer without running out of chips, you will want to bet on any decent hand. You hope to win some blinds here. The more blinds you win, the longer you can wait for killer hands. If you are raised, at least consider responding with an all-in.

Players who start to think of themselves as short-stacked in this position wish to go all-in now on a good hand, rather than being forced to go all-in on a mediocre hand later on. Another advantage of starting to take risks is that an announcement of "all-in" will still pull some weight here. You will have enough chips to make someone think twice before they call you. Later on, your miserable little stack won't be enough to push anyone around.

Choose your opponent wisely, if you can, when you go all-in and want a fold in response. Your raise of all-in against another small stack will be much more powerful than the same tactic against a monster stack. By the same token, if you want a call, don't hesitate to go all-in against players with tons of chips. They will be more than happy to double you up.

Eight times the big blind or less

In any position, whether you are on the button, in the big blind, or the first to bet, consider announcing all-in with any top-10 hand. You still have enough chips here to scare off some players, especially those with similarly sized stacks.

You are starting to get low enough, though, that you really want to be called. If you can play some low pairs cheaply, try it, but bail out if you don't get three of a kind in the flop. You need to keep as many big blinds as you can to coast on until you get that all-in opportunity.

Here are the 10 hands that are the most likely to double you up:

• A pair of Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, or 10s

• Ace-King, Ace-Queen, Ace-Jack, or King-Queen of the same suit

• Ace-King of different suits

Four times the big blind or less

At this point, you need to go all-in, even on hands that have a more than 50 percent chance of losing. Purposefully making a bad wager seems counterintuitive, but you are fighting against the ever-shrinking base amount you hope to double up. If you wait and wait until you have close to a sure thing, whatever stack remains will have to be doubled a few extra times to get you back.

A form of pot odds [Hack #37] kicks in at this point. If you pass up a 25 percent chance of winning while waiting for a 50 percent chance, you might be able to win only half as much when (and if) you ever get to play the better hand. Definitely go all-in on any pair, an Ace and anything else, any face card and a good kicker, or suited connectors.

A good rule of thumb when you're very, very short-stacked (i.e., your total chips are fewer than four times the big blind) is to bet it all as soon as you get a hand that adds up to 18 or better. Kings count as 13, Queens 12, Jacks 11, and the rest are their face value. Aces count as 14, but you are already going all-in with an Ace-anything, so that doesn't matter. Eighteen-point hands include 10-8, Jack-7, Queen-6, and King-5.

Statistical Decision Making

The statistical question that determines when you should make your movewhether it is announcing all-in or, at least, making a decision to be pot committed (so many chips in the pot that you will go all-in if pushed)is, "Am I likely to get a better hand before I run out of chips?"

I'm going to group 50 decent, playable starting Texas Hold 'Em poker hands, hands that give you a chance to win against a small number of opponents. I'll be using three groupings, shown in Tables 4-6, 4-7, and 4-8. While different poker experts might quibble a bit about whether a given hand is good or just okay, most would agree that these hands are all at least playable and should be considered when short-stacked.

By the way, these hands are not necessarily in order of quality within each grouping.

Table Ten great starting hands

Pairs	Same suit	Different suits
Ace-AceKing-KingQueen-QueenJack-Jack10-10	Ace-King Ace-Queen Ace-Jack King-Queen	Ace-King

Table Fifteen good starting hands

Pairs	Same suit	Different suits
9-98-87-7	Ace-Ten King-Jack King-10Queen-JackQueen-10Jack-10Jack-910-99-8	Ace-QueenAce-JackKing-Queen

Table Twenty-five okay starting hands

Pairs	Same suit	Different suits
6-65-5	Ace-9Ace-8Ace-7Ace-6Ace-5Ace-4Ace-3Ace-2King-9Queen-910-89-78-78-67-66-55-4	Ace-10King-JackQueen-JackKing-10Queen-10Jack-10

When you are short-stacked and the blinds and antes are coming due, you know you have a certain number of hands left before you have to make a move. Table 4-9 shows the probability that you will be dealt a great, good, or okay hand over the next certain number of deals.

Table Chance of getting a playable hand

Hand quality	Next hand	In 5 deals	In 10 deals	In 15 deals	In 20 deals
Great	4 percent	20 percent	36 percent	49 percent	59 percent
Good	7 percent	29 percent	50 percent	65 percent	75 percent
Okay	11 percent	46 percent	70 percent	84 percent	91 percent
Okay or better	22 percent	72 percent	92 percent	98 percent	99 percent

I calculated the probabilities for Table 4-9 by first figuring the probabilities for any specific pair (you are just as likely to get a pair of Aces as a pair of 2s): .0045. I then figured the probabilities for getting any two specific different cards that are the same suit (.003), and the chances of getting any two specific different cards that are not the same suit (.009). Then, for each categorygreat, good, or okayI multiplied the appropriate probability by the number of pairs, unpaired suited hands, and so on, in that category. I then calculated the chance of one of these hands not hitting across the given number of opportunities and subtracted that value from 1 to get the values for each cell in the table.

Here is how to use Table 4-9. Imagine you are short-stacked and have just been dealt a good hand. If you think you really have to go all-in sometime during the next five hands, there is only a 20 percent chance that you will be dealt a better hand. You should probably stake everything on this good hand.

If you can hang on for 20 more deals, there is a greater than 50 percent chance that you will get a gangbuster hand, so if you want to be conservative, you can lay these cards down for now. More commonly, short-stacked players consider going all-in with a hand that is not even a top-50 handsomething like King-8 unsuited, for example. Using the probabilities in Table 4-9, you might safely lay it down and hope for a better hand in the next five hands. There is a 72 percent chance you will get it.

Finally, imagine that you have just a few hands left because the blinds are shrinking your stack down to nothing. You look down and see a decent hand, an okay hand, such as 8-7 in the same suit. Table 4-9 allows you to answer the big question: is it likely that your very next hand will be better than this one? There is about an 11 percent chance of getting a good or great hand next. So, no, it is unlikely you will improve. Stake your future on this hand.

Getting Your Mind Right

We talked earlier about why it is so emotionally difficult to play when short-stacked. Here are some psychological tips to fight the pain of being caught between a rock and a hard place:

Be realistic

In blackjack, when a player hits her 16 against the dealer's 7, she knows she is likely to bust. She does it anyway because the dealer is likely to have a 10-card down, and it gives her the best chances in an almost no-win situation. She takes pleasure in knowing she did all she could to give herself the best chances of surviving. The same thinking applies here: take pleasure in knowing you gave yourself the best chances to come back and win.

Enjoy the all-in experience

There is nothing more exciting than having it all on the line. Because you had no real choice about going all-in, just relax and enjoy it the best you can. No player will chide you about doing "such a stupid thing," because you just did the smartest thing you could.

Take control

To avoid feeling forced to do something you don't want to do, start your comeback attempt before you have to. Play to avoid the short-stacked situation by starting to make your moves when you still have 10 to 12 times the big blind in chips. You have a lot more choices at this point than you will have later on, and so you can play with more subtlety, basing your bet on position, opponents, tells, and so on. The smaller your stack gets, the less power you have to control your own destiny.