Simple adjustments to make when switching from cash to STT? (2 Viewers)

[elemeno]

I primarily play cash with 100-300BB starting stacks. What are some simple adjustments to make when playing a single table tournament with 100BB starting stacks? Where do strategies differ the most between cash and tourney? Any good rules of thumb for when to shove preflop?

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Whole books on this transition. Look up the basics of ICM and the ranges for shorter stacks. Not being dismissive, its just a broad subject. Long story short, there's far more pressure to chip up and play aggressively, while also valuing survival over small amounts of EV. It can change how you're "supposed" to play in situations. Preflop raises become smaller but I 3-bet more, and with a short stack there's less room to profitably chase draws, gaining less when it hits. Play fast, and concern yourself with your stack size relative to everyone else's; if you fold the next 15 hands, do you get into the money? Big payjump? Is the other mook playing scared, too concerned with the money and nursing 8 BB?

Biggest difference for me was the short stack play. With deepstack, sure, 5BB call is fine for a big draw, but when you're sitting on 22 big blinds that's a huge portion of your stack. I think you'll be surprised how wide you're supposed to be shoving.


https://pokercoaching.com/blog/swit...ame players, poker,often the longer they last.

 

[MrRossKeys]

My top of mind thought when switching is:

Cash game: "It's ok to be patient, wait for optimal spots, bluff as needed."
STT: "Don't wait too long for the blinds to eat away my stack. Bluff, steal, apply pressure often enough to stay ahead of the blinds."

 

[elemeno]

I’m glad I made this post! I actually thought I had to play nittier in the early stages.

Whole books on this transition. Look up the basics of ICM and the ranges for shorter stacks. Not being dismissive, its just a broad subject. Long story short, there's far more pressure to chip up and play aggressively, while also valuing survival over small amounts of EV. It can change how you're "supposed" to play in situations. Preflop raises become smaller but I 3-bet more, and with a short stack there's less room to profitably chase draws, gaining less when it hits. Play fast, and concern yourself with your stack size relative to everyone else's; if you fold the next 15 hands, do you get into the money? Big payjump? Is the other mook playing scared, too concerned with the money and nursing 8 BB?

Biggest difference for me was the short stack play. With deepstack, sure, 5BB call is fine for a big draw, but when you're sitting on 22 big blinds that's a huge portion of your stack. I think you'll be surprised how wide you're supposed to be shoving.


https://pokercoaching.com/blog/swit...ame players, poker,often the longer they last.

My top of mind thought when switching is:

Cash game: "It's ok to be patient, wait for optimal spots, bluff as needed."
STT: "Don't wait too long for the blinds to eat away my stack. Bluff, steal, apply pressure often enough to stay ahead of the blinds."

 

[Santa123]

I primarily play cash with 100-300BB starting stacks. What are some simple adjustments to make when playing a single table tournament with 100BB starting stacks? Where do strategies differ the most between cash and tourney? Any good rules of thumb for when to shove preflop?

Bust early and play cash as fast as possible.

 

[upNdown]

The thing is that you say 100bb, but the majority of the time you'll all be playing a lot shallower than that. I feel like for most tournament play, you're most often around like 40bb. And at those depths, your play needs to be significantly different. Drawing far less profitable. Like, even set mining probably isn't worth it at a 40bb effective stack. What's that old rule of thumb - stacks need to be something like15x to make setmining a profitable call? If somebody raises 3x and you call with your 55, you and your opponent both need 45bb behind to make that a smart call.
Point is, it's a drastically different game.

 

[ngmcs8203]

You should already be doing this, but if you are not, you need to think about the stacks in the tournament in terms of BBs and not $$. Once you make that switch, you just need to learn ranges at different stack depths. Once you get down to around 30BB that's when you start understanding your 3! and 4! shoving ranges. Once you get less than 25BB you start learning your shoving vs raising ranges. Once you're under 12BB you need to know your shove or fold game.

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Sure, I wouldn't say play nittier early on but I'd play carefully. Not scared, but cognizant that we have a much deeper stack than what will be the average in an hour or two; there's room to maneuver and I'd be playing aggressively, but I wouldn't be playing for stacks as much as cash play. Depending on the tournament, its also a hell of a lot softer at that point, value bet wide but don't lose 80 BBs with your dominated hands, I don't care what the solver says to do when you've got 200 BBs lol.

 

[springbox]

You're going to spend a lot more time in the tournament around 30~50BB than you will at 100BB, so a lot of your play will change because everyone is shorter stacked. ICM pressure is obviously a big factor depending on stack sizes and where in the money you are.

There are definitely push fold charts you can look up to simplify your actions when you're short stacked, just make sure you or the chart takes into account ICM.

 

[JustinInMN]

1) Chips won are less valuable than chips lost. Definitely play more careful in the early stages.
2) This seems to contradict the first point, but don't wait too long to force the action in later stages. When you get to 6-8BB you are probably looking for a hand to get all in preflop. If you let yourself fall below 5BB, double ups really stop helping you enough to give you a chance to win. One shot with 8BB is better than 4 shots with 2BB if you are even that lucky to have 4 shots.