U.S. Players Welcome!Small Ball Poker
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Most good tournament players believe that the ideal strategy is only to play a big pot when having much the best of it. The strategy of keeping pots small until a player has the nuts, or close to it, is known as small ball. Small-ball tactics work best when blinds are small compared to stack size (if the cost of the blinds, or blinds plus antes, per round is less than 10% of the average player’s stack, it’s small-ball time). In the latter stages of a tournament when blinds and antes become a significant portion of players’ stacks, small ball becomes a less significant factor. While small ball is a general concept, it means different things to different types of players.
Old-school players employ small ball as a method of extracting chips through pot-size manipulation. They use opening bets and raises to narrow the possible range of hands their opponents could have. Then, based on those determinations, they proceed accordingly. Their goal is to build their stack gradually through repeated small bets at favorable odds. At the earliest limits, their main chance to get a big stack is through trapping an opponent in a big pot when they have the nuts. For the most part, however, they view the early limits of a tournament as something to get through with their bankrolls intact. Small ball is a means to increase their chances of survival.
For example, a key point in a hand often comes on the turn. Here, the nature of the action can determine whether a pot becomes large or stays relatively small. Say player A raised in late position pre-flop with A
K
. The blinds are 50-100 and he makes it 300 to go. He gets called by the big blind (BB). Both players have about 10,000. The flop is K
8 - 5. The BB checks and player A bets 400. The BB calls. The pot now contains 1,400. The turn brings a 9. The BB checks again. If player A bets at this point, he could win the pot right here. He bets 1,200. However, the BB calls the 1,200 and raises 3,200. Now player A has a big decision to make. He has top pair and the nut flush draw, but the BB could easily have a hand that has him beat. Or he could be trying to steal the pot. And if he doesn’t improve, player A is facing the prospect of another decision, perhaps for all his chips, on the river. Had he checked the turn, as many old schoolers would in this situation, his chances of losing a big pot are greatly diminished. His risks in giving a free card, or perhaps gaining the amount of a called bet on the turn, are overshadowed by the reduction in overall risk.
New-school players have a different take on small ball. On his website, Barry Greenstein credits Phil Hellmuth with pioneering new-school tactics. Barry defines it as "a method of playing a lot of hands and making small bets and raises that keep opponents in the pot, the theory being that [he] will make better decisions than they do on subsequent streets".
The early levels of a tournament are when new-school small-ball experts shine. With small blinds compared to average stack sizes, they have plenty of leeway to mess around in pots without having to commit a large percentage of their chips, as opposed to later in the event, when flops become rare and all-in pots are the norm. Daniel Negreanu expressed his consternation at the structure of a major tournament in Atlantic City, which, in an apparent effort to speed up play, had eliminated "the all-important 25-50 limit" at the start of the tournament. Daniel, and other small-ball specialists, such as Hellmuth, Alan Goehring, and Gus Hansen, salivate at the prospect of playing pots with speculative hands that can develop into monsters. They call reasonable raises looking to bust someone who overplays a big pair. They also outplay opponents, often winning pots in which no one has a strong hand. A great player at a table full of tight and timid novices is like a shark in a goldfish pond.
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