Weird situation, what to do?

So i'm playing in MTT with 10 person tables. 8 people are sitting out and the only other guy actually there is 2 seats to my left. So I act first almost every hand and if I fold he just collects the blinds. He has already built up a pretty decent chip lead so I'm getting pushed around.

I ended up pushing with 99 and losing to KTo. Is there anything I could have done here to help myself out? It was ridiculous.

Play alot of hands, even oop with all the dead money its worth it. Want to KO, good chance you get a sitter as replacement and have the whole tables chips faster...usually if you have that many sitters its b/c the prizemoney isn't that enticing though.

I've been in situations like this... Don't let him to push you around, be agressive, play many hands... involve in many pots and steal the blinds from him.

Or you could just ask him to take turns picking up blinds?

When I find myself in that situation, I just imagine it's a heads up situation and play like I would in that situation. So if your stack was getting low (relative to the blinds), a push with 9-9 would be reasonable.

play a wider range, raise with a wider range, bet at every opportunity.

NO! Dont ever say this in chat, as this is classed as collusion. Try to get a silent agreement with the other player over this, but do not talk about it.

I have faced this many times and I would have to say that you handled this completely wrrong being ahead of him and being the first to act you should of been the aggressor here and been picking up all of those deads blinds

I can't see anything wrong playing the 9's. I would agree with most here and say be aggressive and push a bit.

You sould be playing pretty much every hand in a situation like this.

You guys are forgetting that he's going to be oop damn near every hand.

It's not costing you blinds to play, so you can be selective when picking the hands to play oop, but when you're ip attack with any two. He's going to build a nice lead but hopefully you won't be at that table for too long, so it won't have much of an effect.

If someone asked me something like that (yes it is collusion) I would just try to crush him all the more... I would pounce on him because he: Is talking weak or, is trying to snow me.

Play more postflops with this guy and surely widen your open raise range.
I don't see anything wrong pushing with 99 here, but I prefer to go for a raise with 99 and see how he reacts.

Some freerolls are like that. I like to do a min raise every hand and if the other guy(s) at the table want to play a hand, they do whatever they want. If they want to play a hand, and I have something playable, then it's just like HU. It can feel a bit silly to go out long before the sitters, but this happens. Mostly, it works out that whoever has a nice hand reraises the min raise and the other(s) fold to that without a decent hand. Sometimes one person tries to grab all the sitter-chips, and then it's like playing with a maniac-- wait for a big hand, trap the greedy gus.

In other words, I am the other guy at your table.

I have no intention of folding to any sitter, but I will let you (the other live person at the table) have sitter-chips if you play back when I don't have a hand. Otherwise, I will try to take all the sitter-chips. I mean, why not? They didn't bother to show up, and the chips are just sitting there. There is no reason to let those lovely little chips stay in the stacks of people who are not there.

I will also try to take your chips if you play back when I do have a hand. And assume you will do the same.

It happened to me last night in the Poker-millions UK freeroll... I'm doing alright at about 8-10K in chips, and I realise that everyone at the table but me is sitting out. So I figure to take my time and not get the tables rebalanced anytime soon. I must have had 20-30 consecutive hands (winning only 175-200 chips per hand) where I entered the minimum raise and stole the blinds at the table.

When one player dropped out and was eventually replaced with a 'player' who only had about 2,800 himself, (I had already creamed about 4k in chips from the sleepers) I kept quiet. When he eventually commented on how everyone was folding, I arranged with him to take it in turns to continue to steal the blinds, which we did for some time.

This does involve a certain amount of trust and even laying down the monster hands, in good faith.

This continued for a while until another sleeper was lost to the blinds and was replaced by a real player, the tables were then rebalanced and it was back to regular play again.

We never spoke of it since...

I think it boils down to professional freerollers, hoping to register in a tourney and the fold their way ITM. Even if it's only a few cents, it's the lazy man's way of playing Poker!!

Check out this thread on the subject at Titan Poker.

Information about Titan poker or Betfair poker

It's a common problem, but I suppose it's only in the freerolls that it happens, who'd sit-out a tourney with a buy-in? Full-tilt doesn't show on-screen when someone is sitting out in a tourney, but it appears in the hand history. Everest poker eliminates anyone not signed in for a tourney , as does UltimateBet although Everest goes one step further and ejects anyone who sit's out for an extended period of time, which seems to me like a resonable way to handle it.

Failing that, if your software displays those sitting out, grab a screenshot of several hands and inform your poker site. It's their problem too. They can either eliminate players from the site or issue warnings, or just ban them from the freerolls... they'll wake up when they have to buy-in!!

But there's nothing worse than dropping out of an MTT when you've been grinding against 3 other players at the table and six sleepers. So beware of the uncooperative types too!

Good luck, see you at the tables.