Is it bad to play alot of big pots

Was playin last night and was following along with my stats. My outcome was good with an 8th place finish out of about 400 but I am not very consistent in getting that high. I find that I am involved in alot of big pots but I dont go to showdown very often. After about 175 hands in the tourney I had gone to showdown 8 times and had won 8 times. I had seen about 30% of the flops. I am normally pretty agressive early on willing to go broke on a marginal call if it gives me a chance to get alot of chips early since it makes my agressive play easier then with a short stack. If i am able to make it to 2nd break and I am average stack, I then look to only play the stronger hands but I always come in for big raises to minimize players. I prefer to make large bets and take pots early(unless I flop the nuts obviously) instead of trying to draw my opponent in and possibly take a huge payoff or possibly get sucked out on. I also try and steal alot of blinds, so that when I do get a big hand people think I am overly agressive and pay them off. I feel like I can laydown a good hand when I have alot of chips, but when I am shorter stacked I cant seem to think the same way. I know there are alot of successful players on this forum and I would love some feedback. I also am having a hard time getting my big hands paid off where i hold like 58 in a BB checked to me and the flop comes 88K. It seems no matter how I play it, the other person always folds. For example, I held J8 off last night late in my tourney. the flop came 8810. i checked and the other player in hand made a pot sized bet. I just called. turn came a J so I checked again figurin I had nuts and hopin they had AJ or 99. They checked also. The river came a 2 makin it a rainbow board or no flush draw and I checked again. The other played checked also and showed me QQ. Hind sight is 20/20 obviously and it looks like I coulda pushed hard and got paid off, but how is it possible for the qq to think they were beat the whole time when I only called the flop and no over cards ever came???

You play for big pots when you have a big pair but are you even expecting an answer here I don't even know what to say.

Matt Damon said it the best in rounders.
One big pot an hour.
That is a pretty good logic for ring games I thing,any more than that your playing to many hands.

Well its a good idea to be playing big pots against very aggressive opponents who will stack off light or against anyone if you flop a monster, but its not a good idea to be routinely bluffing at big pots or to be continually getting into them with mediocre hands because you will eventually get called by a legitimate hand.

Stu_Ungar said:

Well its a good idea to be playing big pots against very aggressive opponents who will stack off light or against anyone if you flop a monster, but its not a good idea to be routinely bluffing at big pots or to be continually getting into them with mediocre hands because you will eventually get called by a legitimate hand.

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I don't think that's necessarily true. Tom Dwan does just fine. It just takes a lot of skill.

I hate playing big pots. I'd rather manage the pot and steadily increase my stack through small pots. If I get a huge hand, obviously I try to get into a bigger pot, but as a general rule, it's okay to just play smaller pots and see where it takes you.

If you arnt really good at postflop play, make big pots with big hands only.

i think playing big pots is good but eventually if u keep playing for a large amount of ur stack u will get knocked out..so being able to switch gears can really help you go deep..

jamesdadeliverer said:

I don't think that's necessarily true. Tom Dwan does just fine. It just takes a lot of skill.

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Dwan is one of the world's top 5% of all players.

I doubt he will read this thread.

Therefore I saw no need to confuse the issue by saying that very good players can play in big pots with almost complete air due to their superior hand reading / knowledge of the game.

Big pots are great as long as you're winning them! I find too many big pots a recipe for disaster though. Eventually you are going to lose one. I'll fold good cards when the pots are getting too big and wait for things to settle down.

Not bad to play a lot of big pots unless you are loosing them lol. Only try to be in big pots with big, close to the nuts hands. Otherwise use some pot control tactics