Considering giving up

Last night I was on Pokerstars rocking in a tournament, first place, reasonable chip lead, but my game goes to shit when I'm in this position.

I play good cards badly, and bad cards even worse! It's almost like I'm overwhelmed by my stack.

Anyone else the same? It happens all to often for me.

Stop playing bad hands in the first place.

When you say you're playing the good cards badly - how exactly do you define that ?

Lately Bodog has "KILLSWITCHED" me so badly that I played a nice flopped set horribly yesterday. It is hard sometimes when your pocket queens get crushed by some idiot playing King/Deuce offsuit and hits a King on the river (5 outer).

Obviously I'm trying to get the maximum value for my hand, but so much so that as flip flop said you get bitchslapped by the river!

Also bad hands I mean big blinds checking and hitting then getting murdered!

Look if at the end of an tournament where the cash places have great jumps and you have a nice chip stack just sit back if the situation is right. Only player premium hands like AA KK or AK. Just what i tend to do if i have the chips to wait around with.

Broke my barron run last night in the Hubble Freeroll on Pokerstars. 1/9000 quite proud, and a massive confidence boost.

I just hope I can drum up a similar performance in the Weekly Final.

No if its the end of a tournament its the time to get aggressive...you need to be putting pressure on the other players who want to move up spots on the money board...DO NOT wait for premium hands as they only come so often and by the time it comes around and you shove all in you will get called by everyone at the table because you will have hardly any chips from getting blinded down

its not enough info to tell what went wrong

I came second in a tourney last night (brag) and my tactic once i reached the final four was to rasie raise raise. I'd accumulated a big stack and I just ran the table. Enter in to pots with position, always raise when you enter the pot, don't play trash but solid cards.

9 handed you want the same principles but in a more controlled way. Try changing gears. If you are comfortable then sit tight. Then start opening up notice if your blinds fold. which players fold to re-raises when they open light and such. Then sit tight again. you have a lot of info.

People will start thinking you keep going on good runs or are bluffing, figure out which. When they play back at you and you have a big hand you can snap them off, but if you enter with a marginal hand and get action just lay it down.

You can also play alot of small PP and suited connectors for flop value a syou can afford it if you flop a big hand you can break poeple.

This is big stack poker, controlled aggression with speculation. Don't try and make everyone fold post flop with stupid re-raises target specific people.

Oh and its very fun to be in this situation

Yo chippy i just wanted to say i was very impressed with your play before you were heads up..i was railing you i said. "GO GOOSE" in the observer chat haha...for real though man you were the short stack when you got to the final table BUT you made it heads up and played a great game..i dunnno what happend when u got heads up but you blew a 2:1 chip lead..but still think you played a great game and wanted to say congrats man

Very true!! like what you sad i never get to greedy when i big stacked wait for the right moves and postioning works a treat

if you are giving up over something this simple its obvious you can;t handle this game. It might not be the game for you. I say never give up though. Learn from your mistakes and experience, keep moving forward

Not exactly sure how you played your hands because there's not enough info but when I get down to the final table and have a nice chip lead, don't ever call, fold or raise. Pretty simple concept but it puts a lot of pressure on the other players and takes a lot of the pressure off of you.

When you are chip leader you have an impuls to won more...and you just take bad decisions.
I try to be calm and my game play when I'm chip leader is pretty good... hope you will be better.