A Chip, a Chair and a Chance

When you play online poker and in particular online poker tournament you will frequently find yourself in a position where you are facing a big stack similar to your own size and you get all of the chips in the middle. Either you are already losing or you get a bit of bad luck and suffer a bad beat but on the occasions when you do not win the hand you may be left with a very short stack of less than five big blinds. It is easy to swear at the screen and give up; shoving with any two cards and hope for a run of good luck but you should always play your best game because, once in a while, you can make a comeback.

Imagine this scenario. You are playing in a poker tournament with a large first prize. You battle for four hours and build a competitive stack. After playing very solidly you make a move against a good player and they call you with 60/40 odds. Their hand holds up and as they had a slightly smaller stack than yours they are now amongst the chip leaders whilst you are short stacked and looking doomed. Can you feel the deflation of your hope and your belief that this was your big moment? I can and it is tempting to simply give up if this happens.

Unfortunately as a result of this moment of pain many players do give up and throw their chance of success away. In most tournaments such a crippling loss may mean you will not achieve what you had hoped this time, but you should take solace in that you made the right decision (do not forget to review the hand to make sure you DID make the right decision) and move on with your head held high. There is always another poker tournament to try and win!

Do not dream of regaling your bad beat story at the bar. I have seen many players lose a massive pot then look over to the bar to see who is there that they could talk to when they bust out in a moments time. It is like they have mentally left the table and are waiting for their body to catch up. They almost want to lose their remaining chips believing that the tournament is over for them. All of these things are wrong. The saying “a chip and a chair” means you are still alive and you could double or even triple up. Yes it is unlikely but if you play hard and wait for good hands (if possible) you have a reasonable chance of getting some more chips.

1982 winner Jack Straus is credited with using the phrase “a chip and a chair”. The story (which varies depending on who you ask) is that he pushed his chips into the middle and lost the hand early in the main event. Finding a chip under his napkin as he stood to leave the organisers let him continue playing as he had pushed his chips into the middle rather than declared “All-in”. He made a remarkable comeback from holding only a single chip and eventually won the tournament. This shows you are never out of contention until you have lost your last chip, so always play hard and never give up.

None of the top professional poker players give up and they have plenty of money to simply walk away if things are getting tough. But staying strong and focused helped them reach that level and you should be copying such behaviour. Never give up and play your best poker until your last chip is gone.

By Malcolm Clarke