Mike Caro

The one big plus is that you can purely play the math. Let's say you have A-K suited and you have a big stack. You make a raise and get one caller. He's a reasonably tight player so he's probably got something like JJ, QQ or maybe A Q or A J suited. The flop comes 4 J Q. with a big stack you probably have to fold to any reasonable bet on the flop because you are likely drawing thin after the flop. You of course have a shot to win ( a T gives you the nuts and if he has A J then runner runner A Q or A K gives you the winner) but it's not good.

If you have a short stack you can shove and you really only need to worry about AA or KK. Every other hand your opponent has is more or less a coin flip or you've got them dominated. And you can let all the cards run out and fall where they may, knowing you got your chips in good.

It's also really bad for you to fold a short stack after you are more than pot committed. If you've dumped 70% of your stack in the middle already, what bet could anybody make to possibly get you out? You would have to have an absolutely atrocious hand to dump what few chips you have left. An astute player will pick up on the fact that by committing such a large portion of your small stack to the pot that you've essentially bonded yourself to the pot, as I've seen Mike Caro say on this site. It's pointless to bluff you at this point. Chances are you have a good hand and any bluff just won't work. A less than astute player will say "he still has a few chips left, maybe I can bluff him off the pot?"

The difference here, from a tournament, is that you're not ever "putting your tournament life on the line". You bust out, you put more money on the table. As long as you are making good decisions and getting your money in good, it behooves you to keep playing. You don't have that option in a tourney.