Don't let shorty push all in on your weak cards.

When you have a shortstack on your left you need to be very careful with your play. It’s not good to have a shortstack on your left and you need to be vigilant until they get eliminated or manage to double back up.

The blinds are 50/100, you have 1500 chips and are in the cutoff. Shorty is the button and has 700 chips. The small and big blinds have 1800 and 2000 chips. Six players are still left.

You get dealt K 10.

Normally you would like this hand in this situation. A three times raise should be good enough to win the blinds and you are not dead if you get called.

So you make it 300 to go.

Shorty now moves all in with his 700 chips and the blinds fold.

What to do now?

Well, you really have put yourself in a bad situation. You are already down to 1200 chips and to make the call means putting in another 400 which will leave you short stacked on 800 if you lose the hand.

You need to fold here or risk losing a sizeable part of your stack. Any Ace has you well beaten here.

So the correct play in the first place is to fold the K 10.

It is these types of fold that will greatly increase your chances of taking down the SNG.

Unfortunately for you the short stack has position on you and can use it very powerfully to their advantage. So you need to be very aware of the hands that you raise with whilst shorty lives.

Last update: 20-06-2008 12:03