Poker Tip: The Stop N Go
The stop and go is a trick used by many very good poker players to maximize their chances of taking down a crucial pot when they are on the short stack. This is a poker tip that you can try next time you are involved in a poker tournament holding a short stack and you decide that you are going to go all in out of position. For example, if you are in the small or big blind and another (typically known to be aggressive player raises), instead of just going all in over the top of his raise with a short stack (that the other player will likely gamble and call) just call the bet. Then, regardless of what comes on the flop immediately go all-in. This will help give you some extra chances of winning the hand as the player will have a harder time calling on the flop if he hasn’t quite made his hand yet.
Here is a hand that I was involved with recently where this would have worked. I was on the short stack and had been playing very tight. The player that opened had been raising most pots. I looked down at A9 in the small blind and decided to make my move:
PokerStars Game #17415090173: Tournament #88276515, 500FPP Hold’em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2008/05/13 - 23:23:20 (ET)
Table ‘88276515 1′ 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: soiwinha (4170 in chips)
Seat 5: closemaster (3295 in chips)
Seat 8: yankfan (6035 in chips)
soiwinha: posts the ante 25
closemaster: posts the ante 25
yankfan: posts the ante 25
closemaster: posts small blind 200
yankfan: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to closemaster [9h Ad]
soiwinha: raises 800 to 1200 - Aggressive player raises
closemaster: raises 2070 to 3270 and is all-in - What I should have done was just call this bet, then regardless of what happened on the flop raised all-in.
yankfan: folds
soiwinha: calls 2070
*** FLOP *** [Qc 7s 2h] - Had I just called his raise pre-flop then shoved here, it would have been very hard for him to call with just Jack High.
*** TURN *** [Qc 7s 2h] [Kd]
*** RIVER *** [Qc 7s 2h Kd] [8d] - Because I didn’t do it, look what happened on the river 
*** SHOW DOWN ***
closemaster: shows [9h Ad] (high card Ace)
soiwinha: shows [Jc 8c] (a pair of Eights)
soiwinha collected 7015 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7015 | Rake 0
Board [Qc 7s 2h Kd 8d]
Seat 1: soiwinha (button) showed [Jc 8c] and won (7015) with a pair of Eights
Seat 5: closemaster (small blind) showed [9h Ad] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 8: yankfan (big blind) folded before Flop
Good luck!
gtycoon said
am May 16 2008 @ 9:44 pm
Being a short stack you never really think of playing it this way, but I’ll try it out next time I’m put in this position. It makes sense when you look at the way your hand turned out. If J 8 sees that flop, he may not want to put more into the pot.