Drawing a Line in the Sand

Everybody knows that at a certain stage in the tournament when things aren't going their way, it's time to make a stand. Not everybody understands when the right time to do it is.

For years the magic number that has been mentioned in print publications and Internet forums and even on television shows is 10 big blinds. Whenever players get down near that "magic" number they start to panic.

They feel the urge to push all-in with any of a number of marginal hands including weak aces.

However, drawing a line in the sand is more than just that, and the right time to do it may come much earlier than most players realize.

When you're playing a tournament, at some stage a little red poker devil shows up on your shoulder and says "Enough is enough!"

What prompts that red devil to appear is different for each player. For some, it's one player who seems to be picking on them; for others it could be that they have fallen victim to a bad beat, but often it simply depends on the state of your chip stack.

Take, for example, a $1,500 No-Limit Event at the World Series with 3,000 players. Some players go in with the mind-set that they're going double up early or go home. These players are not going to pushed around in any situation.

Say you have A-K early in the tournament and you reraise a late-position opener and he calls. This is at the $25/$50 level; your opponent has made it $150 and you've reraised to $400 from your $3,000 starting stack.

He calls and the flop comes K-4-5 with two diamonds. At this point you have to ask yourself if there is any way you're going to get away from the hand.

In the late stage of a tournament top pair, top kicker with the same relative chip stack would be almost impossible to get away from. However, early on in the tournament, a lot of people are scared to bust out so fast after just investing $1,500.

You decide that you're going to play the hand really strong unless a flush card appears. You bet $600 into the pot and your opponent calls. The turn brings the T. Now you have to reevaluate your plan because initially you'd decided you would slow down if a flush card hit.

You check and your opponent bets $700. You're not prepared to throw away your A-K just yet because you still have a strong hand and there is no guarantee that your opponent has a flush.

Although you could reraise all-in, you decide if you just call here your opponent might slow down and you hope you can make it to a cheap showdown where you get to show the best hand.

The river comes an offsuit 3 and you check again into your opponent. After a little bit of deliberation, your opponent pushes all-in. You only have $1,300 chips remaining. Is this the right time to draw a line in the sand?

On one hand, you're thinking that you've already invested half your chips into this pot, but on the other hand, you still have over 25 big blinds and it's still very early in the tournament. With 25 big blinds you're far from desperate and still have a workable stack.

While thinking about whether to call or not, a lot of players will include many different factors in their decision-making process. A lot of them may be irrelevant to evaluating the situation correctly. One of the factors some players might include is how long they've actually been in the tournament.

How long you have been playing should have nothing with making a decision. The factor which should be given the most weight is how this decision will best achieve your goal of this tournament.

For example, if a player's goal was to win the tournament, they would almost certainly call and try to double up in this situation. A more cautious player, realizing that he can still play with his remaining chips, might decide to fold the hand and wait for a better spot while at the same time getting to play longer.

Another consideration that some players incorrectly allow to influence their decisions is how much they've bought in for. With exactly the same opponents in an identical situation, some players might play their hand differently in a small-buy-in tournament than they would in a larger-buy-in tournament.

Good poker players have a good idea of where they're willing to draw a line in the sand even before the tournament starts so that they don't have to come up with these answers on the fly. They don't factor in the size of the buy-in or how long they have been in the game. They try to make the best decision possible to better their chances using only pertinent information.

Back to the example. You have $1,300 chips left if you fold. What is your plan for those chips if you fold?

If you aren't comfortable playing with a smaller stack size, you should be more inclined to call. If you are one of those types of players who will immediately start to panic and try to force the action, then you should be willing to make your stand now, rather than putting yourself in a similarly sticky situation somewhere down the line for only half the chips.

A good way to work out whether you decide to draw a line in the sand now is to ask yourself this: if you fold now and the exact same hand plays itself out again a few minutes later in the exact same way, will you make the same decision?

If the answer is "yes," the time to move is now, when you're playing for a substantial pot, rather than ultimately making the same decision for fewer chips a few hands later.

In tournament poker it's often more profitable to make your stand early because the reward is much greater when you have more chips.

In this example you've worked out that you will have the better hand 50% of the time and you're beaten the other 50% of the time. Therefore, taking the coin flip early can be more profitable.

Although a lot of players will wait until they have a short stack before they start taking risks, sometimes the key hands that decide the fate of your tournament arise much earlier than you would expect.