Grebbsy
Enthusiast
Silver Level
...is something you're not allowed to do to your opponents but I'm starting to think it's the only recourse left to me.
As detailed in another thread I seem to be permanently surrounded, in the micro-micro-stakes tourneys where I play, by opponents who shove all-in at the least provocation on the first few rounds of a tournament. 75% of them go out due to this but 25% accumulate a stack that can see anything on the table. And that means of course that they insist on seeing everything on the table.
I've been following the advice given to me to sit tight, grit my teeth and call them with the monsters like AA/AK when I get them. A couple of times in the last two days I actually have managed to last past the first few rounds when I got lucky with a hand like this not too far into the tournament.
Progress, yeah? ... well, maybe. The problem I'm having now, at the stage of the tournament where people are no longer going all-in every single hand, is how to play hands where I've flopped what I figure to be the best hand, but am aware that it may not stay the best hand if it goes all the way to the river; like if I've got top pair, but it's only nines, or if I can see straight or flush draws looming.
I always thought that the thing to do in those circumstances was bet high upon seeing the flop to try and drive people into a fold. But I'm not getting anywhere doing that. They just call me, whether I raise anything from minimum to all-in, and then when the river makes their flush or their better pair, the more I've bet to try and drive them out, the less I have left. Tonight was the last straw; I held AKo, flop comes Ks9h8c. Seeing the possible straight draw I go all in, but Mister Deepstack who doubled up three times in the first five rounds calls me on Qh8h and two more hearts come, bang bang, and yet again I'm out before the bubble.
Have I been playing these situations wrong, and should I just trust to my cards to stay good rather than trying to raise my opponents out of the pot?
Or, if I have been playing them right, how -- short of the aforementioned beating them with a stick -- do I make them fold to my raises?
As detailed in another thread I seem to be permanently surrounded, in the micro-micro-stakes tourneys where I play, by opponents who shove all-in at the least provocation on the first few rounds of a tournament. 75% of them go out due to this but 25% accumulate a stack that can see anything on the table. And that means of course that they insist on seeing everything on the table.
I've been following the advice given to me to sit tight, grit my teeth and call them with the monsters like AA/AK when I get them. A couple of times in the last two days I actually have managed to last past the first few rounds when I got lucky with a hand like this not too far into the tournament.
Progress, yeah? ... well, maybe. The problem I'm having now, at the stage of the tournament where people are no longer going all-in every single hand, is how to play hands where I've flopped what I figure to be the best hand, but am aware that it may not stay the best hand if it goes all the way to the river; like if I've got top pair, but it's only nines, or if I can see straight or flush draws looming.
I always thought that the thing to do in those circumstances was bet high upon seeing the flop to try and drive people into a fold. But I'm not getting anywhere doing that. They just call me, whether I raise anything from minimum to all-in, and then when the river makes their flush or their better pair, the more I've bet to try and drive them out, the less I have left. Tonight was the last straw; I held AKo, flop comes Ks9h8c. Seeing the possible straight draw I go all in, but Mister Deepstack who doubled up three times in the first five rounds calls me on Qh8h and two more hearts come, bang bang, and yet again I'm out before the bubble.
Have I been playing these situations wrong, and should I just trust to my cards to stay good rather than trying to raise my opponents out of the pot?
Or, if I have been playing them right, how -- short of the aforementioned beating them with a stick -- do I make them fold to my raises?