Short Stacked Tournament Play.
There isn't much (any?) written material about mixed tournaments. Which leads me to my question:
When we are short stacked, and the next hand we play will commit us, how should our ranges change?
I think the obvious answer is that we can play hands that have better hot/cold equity, but have poor realization.
We have a whole host of games to consider:
HORSE, Triple Draw, Badugi.
We'd also want to consider what game is coming next; for example, we could be playing stud hi, and decide to wait a hand or two to try to get to a split pot game (stud 8).
We also need to consider ICM when that is a factor. It clearly applies to mixed limit tournaments, but does it work the same as it does in NLHE?
So, with that in mind, how should we be playing these spots?
2 Replies
Is there anybody out there?
It can often become an issue of is this likely to be the best hand I get before posting the blind? If you're playing limit holdem, have only 3xBB or less, you should probably raise preflop with K9o under the gun. Even though that hand should normally be folded utg. Even though raising is a -EV play, it is probably higher EV than folding and being stuck often playing the next random hand.
The same idea might apply to a hand like 2457 in Omaha8, or 863xx in triple draw. Normally wrong to play utg, but now better to play than the alternative of folding and getting stuck with something worse in the BB.
Other than that, you have mentioned most of the other relevant concepts. I would raise the 2457 utg in Omaha8 if super short, but I would fold if I thought I could fold my blinds and almost always secure a min-cash by surviving this one last orbit. This is a situation where you sometimes have to make -EV choices, because they are less -EV than all the other choices.
