In tournaments, your stack is often going to be dwindled down to virtually nothing. This is nothing more than the nature of tournament poker, and sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. What you can do, however, is play the short stack as close to perfection as possible. There are, for all intents and purposes, three moves that become viable as a tournament progresses. Players can either fold, go all in, or call off their stack. Making a call of a raise while leaving an insignificant amount of chips behind is typically a terrible play. So too is raising anything less than the entirety of your stack when the blinds are high. Why? Because by making an all in raise, you are simplifying your post flop strategy, and, more importantly, putting your opponent to a tough decision.
The more chips that you raise with, the more likely you are to force a fold. In the later stages of a tournament, folds are often just as good as calls, even when you are holding a strong hand. The blinds become so large that one round of blinds can move you up the payout ladder. There are going to be plenty of times where a shove is going to be called by a superior (or inferior) hand that ends up beating us, but you can’t win them all. Make the best play available and things will work out. This is the unfortunate aspect of tournaments. Sometimes you have no choice but to go all in, even if it is far from the most relaxing play.
One of the most effective way to gain control in a multi-table tournament is to shove your opponents around. In cash games, the ability to manipulate someone is usually quite limited. This is why most cash games have a maximum buy in. If players could buy in for $200,000 at a 5/10 game, they could play wild and reckless and still bust a lot of the players who are working with $1,000 stacks.
Tournaments are completely different in this aspect, because even though everyone starts with the same amount of chips, there are typically great disparities in chip counts as the event progresses. If you can get some early double ups, or even steadily build your stack, you are going to have a lot more chips than the majority of your opponents. These chips can then be used as a weapon. If players are raising a lot, make some looser calls, or looser re-raises, and try to take down pots with pure force. Now, there is a thin line between reckless and aggressive, so never play wildly if it is unlikely to be profitable. This is the biggest problem for most deepstacked tournament players, knowing how to properly use a big stack to their advantage.
Phil Hellmuth is one of the easiest targets in all of poker. He always sets himself up for a barrage of criticism, even though it is clear that he can never take even the slightest jabs. Some players get under Hellmuth’s skin so as to give themselves an advantage, while others do it solely for the comedic value.
Whichever the reason, it always provides for great entertainment. Phil Hellmuth is the king of self-promotion, and any audience is made fully aware of this whenever he is at the table. Hellmuth’s obnoxious promotional techniques might be quite tacky, and they might also be annoying, but no one can deny that his methods have helped to make him as popular as he is.
#1-His Table Talk
Phil Hellmuth is one of the most talkative players at almost any table he sits at. Even Mike Matusow gives way to the never-ending Hellmuth jabber. Sometimes his talk is funny, if only because of how delusional it always is. Other times, Hellmuth’s talk is just flat out ridiculous. When he critiques other players or points out what he would have done differently, it is common to see other players laugh at him. His approach to the game is often so ABC and old school, that any respect he used to have has now gone out the window. If Hellmuth learned to keep quiet at the table, he might gain some fans, but then again, he might lose some too.
In the landscape of modern poker games, players have learned to adapt to much more aggressive playing styles. Some poker players naturally understand when and how to properly apply pressure to their opponents. Other players try to practice what they’ve been taught but end up failing miserably. One of the most common misapplied strategies is the light re-raises. Most of the time, a light re-raise is found in a cash game setting, but not always. There are definitely some players who are capable of executing light re-raises in tournaments. The premise and basic approach to light re-raising is almost the same in both environments.
“Light”
The keyword in light re-raising is of course, light. If you are 3 betting or 4 betting with a good hand, it is for value, and the aim is entirely different than that of a weak hand. Beyond this, some weaker hands are much more ideal for light re-raises than others. A hand like 8 9 suited might seem like it would be good for a light re-raise, but it really isn’t. If you take 8 9 at face value, you are going to find that it has little intrinsic value. When played in position against a raise, however, 8 9’s value begins to skyrocket. If a player opens and you call with 8 9, there is a good chance for a big pot to develop and for 8 9 to be on the winning end. This is why calling a raise with 8 9 is usually better than re raising.
Set mining is one of the easiest ways to stack your opponents in a NLHE cash game. There are good times and ways to set mine, but there are also some terrible ways to set mine. For example, set mining with awful implied odds is a recipe for disaster. In fact, implied odds are at the core of most set mining expeditions. With that said, there are also many situations where set mining is quite cheap.
When you miss a set in a small pot, it usually means that you saved money, but it also means that you weren’t likely to make much money. This is the problem with set mining in small pots. If you happen to connect with the board, the only way you are going to get paid off is if your opponent also happens to have a huge hand. There are few spots where a set is going to stack an over pair in a limped or single raised pot. Re raised pre flop would indicate larger hands, but they also make it that much more expensive to set mine. Always balance the pros and cons of set mining in any given hand.
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