Interesting 3-Handed Final Table Strategy

[Marlow]

In a $50 6-handed NL Hold-Em tournament last night on UB, I knocked two of my remaining 4 opponents on successive hands and had around 4,000 in chips. Player A, to my left had about 600, and Player B, to my right had about 1,400. The tournament only paid two places. I would characterize both players as tight and relatively passive. The blinds were 20-40.

A few hands into three-way action, I formulated this strategy: I decided to raise more hands against Player B (1,400) than Player A (600), thus stealing more of his blinds. I also began to fold a few extra blinds (but not with premium hands, of course) to Player A, thus letting him tread water. My thinking here was that because we were on the bubble, both players would do anything not to go out (although this might be applied to other final table strategies). I felt that it would be to my advantage to keep Player A with the small stack in as long as the Player B had over 700 or so. In this way, I hoped to give myself a better chance of playing against a very small stack heads-up. Also, the longer I kept both players in, the closer we got to an increase in the blinds (30-60).

Although the strategy worked for me, I’m interested to know if you think it was sound play.

Also, could I get away with this if one of the players was a tough player? What if both were tough? What situations would this NOT work in?

Even though this scenario does not come up too often, I think that it is a good idea to analyze the ways to maximize your edge to capture first place money.

~Marlow
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[Aces McGee]

Were you folding as many blinds to the short stack as you were stealing from the bigger stack?

Aces McGee

[Marlow]

No. I stole about 70% of the bigger stack's blinds, and folded about 50% of the time to the smaller stack.

But for the sake of argument, let's say that stealing from big stack as much as I'm folding to small stack is ideal.

~Marlow
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[Bozeman]

Don't do it if you know the small stack.

Seems like the middle stack needs to attack the small stack, which he should do anyway, unless you are ready to call most any allin by the mid stack.

Craig

PS In almost every 3 handed situation I know, the blinds are much larger than this, though that may not hinder your strategy, except that MS will call more.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

With the blinds this small I'd tend to steal from both for a while. However, the concept of keeping them both alive so that you can continue to winnow them both down is a very good one that I use myself whenever the situation presents itself.

Here's an extreme example. I'm raising preflop and taking the blinds about 75% of all hands dealt at a 10-handed final table where 9 get paid. I've got about 50xBB at this point, 8 players have between about 5-15xBB, and one guy has 2xBB. I know they're all waiting for the super-short stack to bust out before they risk their stack against me. When it comes around to my SB, the short stack is in the BB. I know he's smart enough to call with any two cards at this point, getting 3:1 on the call. I look down to see AQs. I fold. I must've stolen at least 20xBB more before he went broke, so giving up on this 4xBB pot was a pretty good bargain.

BTW, you should've seen some of the faces when I folded. They couldn't believe it. I suspect some of them suspected me of collusion with the guy. I know him, but we're not really buddies. However, as you now know, collusion for his benefit had nothing to do with it.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Sarge85]

This seems odd. I thought the train of thought was to attacked the short stacks ruthlessly and make them decide if they want to risks their chips on medium hands.

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[Greg (FossilMan)]

Yes, it is very counter-intuitive.

There is an old story, I think about Jack Strauss. He's in a NLH tourney, they're on the bubble, and he has gone from short-stack to the chip leader by raising every hand preflop and taking the blinds/antes. On this hand, he gets reraised all-in by a short stack. He calls with KK and busts the short stack, sending him and all but this unlucky fellow into the money. Jack then laments (in the story, not at the table) that he should've folded, because the chips he won from this pot were nothing compared to what these players were going to let him steal if he kept this guy alive and maintained the money (bubble) pressure on the field.

There have been numerous occasions where I've folded in a spot where I know I had +EV because keeping this opponent alive kept me in a situation that was even more +EV.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)