4 Big Blinds To Chip Leader… This Is Why I Never Give Up

Is It Ever Really Over In Poker Tournaments?  

Curious to hear what others think on this one - when you’re down to like 1-2BB in a tournament, are you actually trying to grind it back or is it basically just “jam any two and hope”? I’ve seen both approaches and I’m not sure which is actually correct.

Had one of the strangest tournament recoveries recently on PartyPoker.

I was playing a qualifier for a $250 ticket and after a pretty brutal bad beat, I found myself down to around 1.4 big blinds.

At that point I think most players would probably already mentally call it a bust and just start jamming any two cards, hoping for a double up or just to get it over with.

I was definitely annoyed after the hand, not going to lie, but I tried to just reset and play each hand properly instead of completely punting it off.

Somehow I managed to spin it back up to around 10BBs from there, which already felt like a small win in itself just surviving that stage.

Once I got back to around 10BBs, everything obviously changes a bit - you’re not dead anymore, you’ve got fold equity, and suddenly people actually respect your shoves again.  

From there I ran it all the way up and ended up qualifying for the next round as chip leader, which honestly felt a bit unreal considering where I was earlier.

But here’s the thing I’ve been thinking about since… I’m not sure how much of that was actually “good recovery” versus just getting lucky at the right times.

Because realistically, I probably still needed a couple of hands to go my way to even get back into the game at all.

At the same time though, I do think a lot of players mentally give up in that exact 1-3BB spot way too quickly and maybe don’t realise how much playability they still actually have left.

Curious what others think here - is there actually a “right” way to approach that stack size, or is it just pure survival mode at that point?