Was in Over My Head in the CC Championship for '08

Late in '08, I bought into CC's Championship of the year game. I got to the final five or so and I knew I was against folks who were/are better than I. And, I wasn't the only one who knew they were better than I. The fello to my immediate right, Janovsky, would raise me EVERY TIME it was folded around to him. I folded against his raises every time I had a hand that I knew I'd end up folding to a continuation bet. I only called his big raises with mid/high pairs and high, suited connectors. I had more chips than he did, till the assault on my stack began...but by playing defensively AND GETTING OUT OF THE WAY saved me; he raised a few too many times and got busted out...I fought the good fight he fell out before me and I came in second.

Normally, if I think I can get away with it, I'll raise with a wide range of hands, but I won't call with those same hands. I asked his permission back then, if it was ok with him if I used his name in a strategy blog about how playing defensively saved my stack and led to me finishing in a higher place than he and he said it was fine. In his response, he complimented me on my discipline and knowing why to fold and when. It's not always weakness to fold...it preserves the ability to make a bigger bet when you do have the best hand. I had fold equity whereby if I called his BS raises (and many of them were BS raises) when I did make a raise, I'd have such a short stack EVERYONE could afford to call and everyone would call. Not only because they could afford to but because if they were paying attention they would assume I was a calling station.

Nice post, pkrplr. you're perfectly right that you can raise a much wider range of hands than what you can call with, as you will miss the flop 2 times out of 3 and the aggressor will just eat you alive when you miss. Yet folding too much is not much fun, especially if you can't steal blinds from people on your left to compensate.

I assume this was mostly blind vs. blind, he was SB and you were BB? The standard defense against someone who steals more than his share is to resteal lighter, i.e. reraise him, often simply by shoving all-in if stacks sizes permit. But you need to start defending soon enough so that your stack allows you to reraise to something like 3 times his raise, otherwise he has proper odds to call with any two cards and you loose the advantage of folding equity.

In more general terms, whether an aggressive or passive line is the best strategy overall really depends mostly on the payout structure. Let's take a theoretical example. Imagine you have 3 people left and the payout is $100 for first, $50 for 2nd and $30 for 3rd. Imagine - theoretically - that playing aggressively guarantees that you'll have 50% chance of finishing 1st and 50% of finishing 3rd but never 2nd, while playing passively garantees 2nd place 100% of the time. Then aggression is the best choice as your expected profit will be .50x100+.50x30 = $65 instead of the $50 for 2nd place.

Most SNG and MTT payouts are structured in a way to rewards aggression, but there are exceptions. Beginner SNGs on Bodog have a linear payout that makes aggression/passivity equally good. Double-or-Nothing on Pokerstars and satellites have a flat payout that discourages aggression completely.

For those interested in the details of how the payout structure affects your decisions for particular hands, you should research what is call ICM, i.e. Independant Chip Model, which is a mathematical tool to translate stack sizes into corresponding $$ value based on the payout structure. This allows you to make decisions in order to maximize your $ expected value ($EV) and not just your chip EV.

Wow, Belgo, thanks very much for all the info! And yes, it was almost always Sb (him) vs BB (me). I appreciate the analysis very much, too!

Yes ty belgo, I am a crappy tournament player and am usually not aggressive till the turn and confident I have the hand. I am trying to work on being more aggressive and stop just playing my cards. I think I lose more by going in when blinds are high to see flop and when I miss, fold to any raise.