Playing With a Small Stack in Sit and Go Poker Tournaments

Tournaments, Sit and Go Tournaments
June 19 2008

There’s no worse place to be when you’re playing in a tournament than the short stack at the table. It doesn’t matter how you got there, whether it was a bad beat or a bad bet; you’ve got to get some chips and fast, or your tournament will be over.

Even though that’s the case you still have to be patient when you have a small stack. Don’t just go all-in right away on the next hand after seeing your chip stack take a large hit. Your playable hands and your actions may be limited, but if you’re going to have even a slim chance at surviving and rebuilding your stack, you’ve got to be smart.

If you’ve got enough chips left to survive a few rounds of the blinds, your best move is to wait for some premium cards and get all your chips into the middle. Your mindset should be all-in or fold at this point. If it’s cheap enough to see a flop go ahead and do it, but make sure your cards are good enough to call a raise; since you’re the small stack the rest of the table will try to bully you with big bets and raises.

When you’re the small stack try to take advantage of players that you know to be tight. Against really tight players you may still be able to bet it all and cause them to fold. Every pot, no matter how small, is like gold when you’re the small stack.

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