Points To Avoid Variance in Poker Tournaments
In our last article, we spoke of increasing variance as a way of preventing ourselves from getting into awkward situations with certain conditions in tournament play. As you might have suspected, along with finding spots to increase variance, there are also spots in which decreasing variance can be a profitable asset to your game.
Sometimes, the stack size that you have at a particular point in the tournament may gain little by increasing in size, but lose much by decreasing in size. Example, you have t10,000 at blinds 100/200 (M 33.3) with stacks at your table (starting from the right) of t6,000, t4,500, t1,000, t2,000, and t500. With stacks like this to your right, and a sizable chip lead over the rest of the table, gaining chips at this point is arbitrary for the long term in the tournament. With a 4k block of chips over the stack to your right, however, doubling him up puts you in a precarious position, dropping you to 4,000 (M 13.3) and giving the player to your right a big stack to abuse your blinds with.
Decreasing variance, at least until either the blinds go up or a bigger stack reaches the table, keeps you as the table captain and allows you to take full advantage of your position on the second and third stacks and the chip lead that you have over them. With such a large M, you can afford to sit tight for a level or two, allowing the players to your right to either chip up or make mistakes against you and allow you to chip up. Remember; at M 33, you have the luxury of time, while at M 10 or less, three of the remaining players are going to be looking to ship or fold, which rewards you for being tight. The other 2 stacks are somewhat comfortable (M 15/20) but at a 6 handed table, there’s a bit more of a sense of urgency. Now, when the blinds escalate to 100/200 (25) and your M drops to roughly 22, you can go back to normal variance, as you no longer have the deep stack that you had before, and your opponent’s M’s has dropped to a point where they’ll be forced to gamble more often.
Another time you may want to decrease variance is if a player with considerable skill is to your left with a deep stack, and you also have a deep stack. A good example of this is when you have t10,000 and the player to your right, an online tournament pro who you respect, is at t15,000 at blinds 50/100. THe rest of the table, from the right, is t1,000, t4,000, t2,000, t1,500. Both you and the pro are M60+, meaning you’re insanely deep. However, the pro has a block of chips that he can gamble to play against you (2.5k) and has the advantage of position on you throughout the tournament. It may seem bad to allow the pro to get walks and play against him less, but remember; he knows that he has the advantage of position and a block of chips he can afford to lose to you in spots that he would normally have to avoid.
If he had a 10k stack, for example, losing 3k in chips to you would allow you to be more aggressive against him, even without position, because of the 6k chip advantage you would enjoy over him. So, that 5k in chips he has over you allows him to play more aggressively against you and forces you to tighten up against him. Let’s take a look at the rest of our table, though; stacks that, except for t4,000, are considerably short and easier to play against. Wait for favorable situations against the big stack to your left, and possibly look to loosen up a bit against the stacks to your right, both to shut out the pro and chip up to the pro’s stack. This is an instance where you may have to both increase and decrease variance at the same time; increasing to take advantage of the short stack to your right, but decreasing to be wary of the big stacked pro to your left.
A third time of decreasing variance can come around bubble time. It happens when you have a medium stack and there are big stacks at your table. With t30,000 at blinds 1,000/2,000 (200) at a nine handed table, you’re just above M6, which cripples you down to a shove/fold stack. The other 5 stacks at your table are t70,000, t10,000, t200,000, t80,000, and t40,000. The big stack is in the middle of the table to you, so he’s negligible in how you approach the bubble. The problem comes in the big blind when you’re on the button. He can call your shove and not be completely in danger if he loses; it would drop him to t50,000, or M10, so if he suspects you of shoving light, he can call you down pretty lightly.
The super short stacks will be furiously getting their stacks in anytime they see anything of value. This puts you in an awkward spot. You need to chip up to have a chance at making it deep in the tournament, but your stack prevents you from being able to really do much more than the super short stacks. The difference you have between them, though, and the reason you should decrease your variance, is that a double up brings you out of the danger zone and allows you to utilize your stack on the bubble more effectively. Because of this, you need to look for spots during the bubble stage of the tournament that allow you to either get out of the danger zone or steal a round of blinds, so decreasing your variance is paramount here.