Bodog 1k Freeroll Last Night

Hello Everyone =) This is my first post here at CardsChat (although I lurk every now and then), and thought I would share my experience last night in the Bodog 1k freeroll.

I was very happy with my game the entire night up until the end, and managed to finish in 29th place. Made almost 6 dollars yay! However, I am a bit lost on how I could have played differently when the blinds started shooting up quickly.

I managed to keep an even stack of about 50k chips when we hit the bubble, but went entirely card dead up until elimination. Players were going absolutely crazy with ALL-IN's every single hand. People were dropping like flies at that point.

I kept a my head about me and didn't gamble maniacs with the iffy hands I was getting, such as JTo and 76s. Perhaps that was my problem, but putting everything on the line with these hands didn't seem prudent.

The blinds started to eat away at my stack when they shot up to 3/6k + antes. At this point I was a severe short stack since everyone else was at least over 100k in chips. Being card dead up until the end I was forced to go ALL-IN with a mediocre hand and was completely dominated by QQ.

Does anyone have some advice for playing in these type of games once you hit the bubble? I know I probably should have been more aggressive, but it was extremely difficult since the maniacs were going all in nearly every hand (plus I couldn't catch a hand).

Any advice would be appreciated =)
Thanks a bunch.
-gahdoh

Sometimes thats just how it goes in freerolls, its just how its ment to be. Ive found myself in this situation plenty of times, and dont really feel its my fault (in terms of how i played). You can't just call rediculous raises with medicore hands. Sure you COULD loosen up a little but don't overdue it. But really sometimes thats just the way it goes with freerolls and you just gotta take the free money and hope for the best next time...

hello and welcome to cc . nice finish by the way. don't let the blinds increasing affect your play. just take each hand as it comes. don't let the 8000 blinds intimidate you.your cards are the same if blinds are 10 bucks or 8000. play them and the players.

u gotta take the blinds into your decision making when they get tht big if u have 6 bbs u have to steal at least 1 time each round or u gonna be so short u have to push with mediocre hands as you did.

If u go dead it is all about stealing the blinds so tht u keep a pretty even stack. In an mtt i did last night right on the bubble for the final table i went completely dead but any ace any king i raised all in and the raise was respected because it is harder to call all in thn to go all in

Agreed, thats the best survival advice for late tourney, short stacks. Alot of people like to just think, well Im short stacked, may as well risk it. Youll find you rarely ever play these guys at the final table, as they havent honed their game enough yet. Thats whats called two card hold em, if its good, all in, if it aint, fold. You really want to avoid these types of players as much as possible, because as we all know bad beats happen often. Try to just chip away at some more conservative players to gain some blinds, till you get a hand and can either justify calling a big all in cause you know your ahead, or can take it to the flop and hammer it.

Good luck in the next one, everyone wins one at some point

You need to learn the concept of M (get a Harrington on Hold'em volume 2 book - it's great). This will lead you to understand what plays you have to make relative to the blinds. Sometimes all you can really do is push or fold because anything else will get you pot committed anyway.

This is obviously oversimplifying things, but stack size in relation to the blinds is very important to your strategy.

Good job in cashing!

Just picked up the e-book. Thanks for the reference Kajagugu.

In those situations, I generally analyze if I have have more or less than 10x the BB, my position (and the players and style in front of me), who and what kind of player is in the blinds, my hand (A2-5 is barely favored over any connecting cards so going all in with something like 76 suited is not a bad strategy when you think about it.).

Those things help me with my choices, but honestly in those situations the majority of it is luck. Good luck to you in the future and glad you are winning.