The Biggest Mistake Small Stakes Tourney Players Make With Less Than 25 BBs
So far, we have discussed all the mistakes that small stakes tournament players make with various stack sizes that usually result in them ending up with less than 25 big blinds. To wrap up this series, we will go over the mistakes that they make once they get to that point. You won't be shocked to learn that all of these mistakes are related.
The biggest mistake these players make with less than 25 big blinds is that they call too often in spots that should be shoves or folds. Just as we saw happening with larger stacks, these players choose to call and see flops because seeing if you can make a hand is fun. Let's break these mistakes down by stack size.
Calling Too Often With 15-25 Big Blinds
With 15-25 big blinds, these players like to just call with hands like A9s that make excellent three-bet shoves. To them, 20-plus BBs seems like a lot to risk with a "drawing hand" which is pretty funny when you consider that these are some of the same people who were calling 30-BB bets on the turn to try and bink a gutter to the low end of a straight back in Level 1.
What they really mean is that they do not want to risk their tournament life. They will have better results once they realize that calling opens with hands like this and folding when they inevitably miss two out of three times is an even bigger risk to their tournament life, but with a much lower chance of doubling up to a decent stack size when they get lucky.
I will open very wide against players like this which offers them an opportunity to take advantage of my raise-folding gap. There may be times where I am opening 50 percent of hands into this player, but only calling a shove with the top 10 percent. I am folding to a shove from them 80 percent of the time, which means they can shove almost any two cards on me properly from late position.
Instead, they often wait until they run out of fold equity, then berate me for cracking their A2o after I was priced in with some suited two-gapper with which I raise-called.
Folding Too Often With 10-15 Big Blinds
With 10-15 big blinds, these players do not shove widely enough from late position. This is the area where they tend to have a chance due to the plethora of shove charts available online. However, many players refuse to shove the Nash ranges. They may prefer to limp and see a flop or raise-fold instead. Even the players who do follow shove charts may be leaving some money on the table.
If you look at the range of hands that an app like SnapShove suggests you call with when facing a 10-15 BB shove from late position, you quickly realize that almost no one in small stakes tournaments is calling correctly. In turn, this means that you can actually profitably shove a bit wider than the Nash ranges. In fact, against some players in the big blind, you can profitably shove 100 percent of hands from the small blind.
If this sounds scary to you, check out my recent article where I discussed doing this very thing in a tournament without looking at my cards. Getting so many of those shoves through with literally any hand I was dealt helped me to get comfortable shoving wide ranges.
Conclusion
Hopefully this series has helped you either identify some leaks in your game or find some opportunities to exploit leaks in your opponents' games. All of these errors stem from players wanting to have fun by calling to see flops to try and make a big hand.
But this is not video poker. You can't just get another hand when you miss. You have to keep playing that crap, and unlike in video poker, sometimes you have to play it for your tournament life with a triple-barrel shotgun in your face.
I don't remember it being very fun when I played that way, so I started playing aggressively to turn the screws on other recreational players instead. If you do the same, I have a feeling that things will turn around for you like they did for me.
