How to play a short stack on a final table: calling vs all-ins

Reaching the final table of any poker tournament is an accomplishment in itself, but the hard work is far from over. All of the big money is reserved for the top three spots and you now need to manoeuvre your way through the remaining players and ensure you clinch the biggest cash possible.

The problem? By the time you reach the final table, in most cases, stacks are going to be short in relation to the big blind (particularly in turbo tournaments and especially in hyper-turbo tournaments).

We know that learning how to crush with seven, nine, eleven big-blind stacks etc. isn’t the most exciting aspect of tournament poker study. You’re unlikely* to excitedly share a hand with friends saying: “Look! I totally just owned this player! I shoved j♣10♣ for eight big blinds on the button and they called with pocket fives from the big blind!”

But it certainly becomes exciting when you figure out that mastering short stack play can make you plenty of money.

So if you often find yourself near the bottom of the chip counts when you’re down to the final table and you feel you’re making mistakes that are costing you pay jumps, this article will help.

We’re going to look at a few examples of calling vs an all-in when you’re short-stacked in tournaments, and some overall hand ranges you can call with.

*TIP: If you ARE sharing these hands, we suggest you check out the BBZ Bundle. With 20 hours of content from head coach Jordan “bigbluffzinc” Drummond, you’ll have some truly sharable plays in your arsenal in no time.

Calling all-in vs another short stack

In BBZ coach Jargo “bungakat” Alaväli’s 57-minute video ‘Intro to Short Stack Play: Calling vs All-In‘, he shows us a wide variety of hand history examples of calls when faced with a shove.

It’s worth noting that not all of Jargo’s examples in the video are short-stack hands. Nor are they all from final tables. In such instances, he explains that his strategy will change when the Independent Chip Model (ICM) and pay jumps are involved.

But for the most part, the strategy he shares is applicable to being on a final table with a stack on the shorter side, and final table hands are what we’re focusing on in this article.

The first hand we’ll look at is at a final table with five players remaining. Jargo is the shortest stack with 7.7 big blinds and he’s in the big blind with K♠J♣.

Action folds to the button who is the second shortest stack with 10 bigs. The button jams, the small blind folds, and Jargo makes the call.

“The button’s 10-big-blind jamming range is supposed to be around 40% here,” Jargo explains in the video, walking us through the charts. “But because the shove is only for 7.7 big blinds effective, the range can be wider.”

However, Jargo believes that with 10 bigs the button could still min-open with the very top of their range (QQ to AA and AK-suited), and he feels the majority of players don’t always find correct shoves with the lower portion of this shoving range (smaller suited connectors and offsuit hands like Q9, for example.

Versus this, Jargo is expected to call with 33% of hands. Here’s a look at Jargo’s calling range in this spot, with those aspects mentioned above factored in:

So in this case, K♠J♣ is clearly in the call all-in range.

As Jargo is the shortest stack, ICM allows him to call more aggressively and try to double up.

Facing a shove from the chip leader

In the second example, Jargo is on a final table with five players remaining. He is third out of the five with 17.45 big blinds to start the hand (so by no means super short) and he picks up K♠A♦ in the big blind.

The chip leader is in the hijack (also under the gun) and shoves his 33-big-blind stack, covering all players. Everyone else folds and with big slick you can assume Jargo has an easy call.

K♠A♦ is a premium hand and as you’d expect Jargo does indeed make the call all-in. But if we look at the spot overall, we have to think about our entire range, the chip leader’s range, and the fact there are two shorter stacks who we don’t want to bust before.

First, let’s look at the chip leader’s range. “He’s going to be shoving around 17% of hands, but because I have 17 big blinds and there’s also a stack of 20 big blinds, it’s unlikely he will jam with the very top of his range,” explains Jargo.

He removes the strongest hands from the chip leader’s range, including:

• 1010 up to AA
• AK (both suited and offsuit)
• AQ-suited

It’s more likely that they will choose to open these hands instead. After all, they can induce worse hands to shove and then they have easy calls.

That leaves the chip leader with a shoving range that looks like this:

When Jargo runs the hand through ICMizer, he can see that he is supposed to call with 12% of his hands.

Here’s what his calling range looks like:

“I would pay attention to the K10-suited in this spot,” says Jargo. “A lot of people are not going to call with K10-suited but it is coming into our calling range as the chip leader is not going to have the top of his range.”

Obviously, final tables differ in size and pay jumps. When you’re at the lower end of your calling range and there are two stacks shorter than yours, it’s going to be down to you to weigh up the risk of calling and busting instead of weighting out the shorter stacks, to the reward of calling all-in and potentially putting yourself in a great position to win the tournament.

This hand ended with Jargo doubling up through the chip leader’s pocket threes.

Folding for 6 big blinds in a PKO

It’s also interesting to look at a spot in which you’ll feel nitty folding versus a shove even when folding is the correct play.

This hand is taken from the BBZ Bundle. It’s from a two-part video series in which head coach Jordan “bigbluffzinc” Drummond (aka BBZ) and BBZ coach and streamer Jon “luckyfish89” Clark go through a $530 Progressive Knockout (PKO) ICM hand history review of a tournament played by Clark.

There are six players remaining and the hand begins with Clark in pretty rough shape. He has a stack of 6.1 million and the big blinds are 600K/1.2 million, giving Clark just five big blinds.

As this is a PKO tournament, each player has a bounty on their head. This means half the prize pool goes into the bounties, and when you eliminate a player, you collect their bounty while your own bounty increases.

In terms of ICM and going all-in, this puts you in a tough spot when you’re short stacked. You’re almost guaranteed to get called, particularly if you have low fold equity and a big bounty up for grabs.

The same is true for calling all-in when you’re facing a shove. In this spot, the under-the-gun player open-jams for 11.5 million (9.5 big blinds) and it folds to Clark in the big blind with A♠3♦. Some of you might be tempted to shrug and call, hoping to double up while a double-up can still put you in a half-decent position.

But with five bigs, Clark lays it down.

“It seems close,” says BBZ. “But I think folding is fine. Your range here has to be so tight.”

After all, the Villain is shoving into all players, three of which cover him, so his shoving range needs to be very strong in this spot.

“He’s going to be shoving with a bunch of hands which smash A♠3♦,” says BBZ. “Maybe KQ-suited if you’re really lucky.”

The lesson? You don’t have to shrug and call just because you’re the shortest stack. Blinding down sucks, but busting sucks more.