How do you deal with being Card Dead in MTT's?

My last 3 MTT's I was so card dead it was unbeliveable!

no suited connectors no pairs and dont even think about top pairs just random hands like 3-8os and j-4 for hours and hours.

How do you guys play an MTT While being card dead the entire tourny?
This is a MicroBuy Turbo MTT with alot of donks where table image dosent matter at all and russians are going all in everytime, and people dont care if you didnt call for 20 hands straight and then go all in you will still get called.

And people will call you with just about anything so bluffing trying to steal is plain stupid and kicks you out pretty fast.

How can you make it to final table like this? I mean the blinds go up fast and people are going crazy around you untill bubble and even after bubble, Damn I Hate being card dead lol I Guess to make turbo Knockout mtt's final table you must get good cards!

How do you guys deal with Being card dead for so long?

You have to loosen up from late position I think. It tough not to spew when you are frustrated.....

nedrebek said:

it hard to do

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Insight at its finest... But basically just loosen up in late position as said before just play your game. Hands will come eventually. If you just fold and fold, and all of a sudden u wake up with AA and raise, and u have played no hands for an hour. It's likely that even the biggest donkeys won't give u action

When i card dead i just fold and wait, and fold and wait and fold and fold and fold and then i blind myself to dead and i blame card dead and dont think that i could do something...

Here is how i think of it, when you are in late position or where ever you want, like every 10, 12 hand you raise, no madder what hand you have, it is even better if it is junk no speculative hand so if you get re raised you'll know what to do, if you get called fire on flop again and from there figure out how hand is developing... that way when you raise every 10th, 12th hand you'll make yourself image of 10% tight guy and you'll most likely steal with a raise, and if you manage to do that once in a one turn you'll have enough chips to survive till later stages...

Going card dead is interesting from a theoretical point of view. Sometimes I go more than an hour without a playable hand.

Sklansky said that waiting until you have the big blind and have the proper odds to call with any 2 cards is not such a bad strategy from a theoretical point of view, when one is card dead. I do that sometimes just to see what will happen and quite often miracles will strike (but not always

Plus if you wait long enough, eventually you will usually get a big hand

Position position position.... and table image.. you need to be able to have enough chips so to have fold equity vrs Villian

Well, it happens to everyone, and its not easy. What I do is to try to steal blinds when I can, and if cards still don't come, you will have to wait an acceptabble hand to shove all in, according to the blinds you have (this happens when you have around 10 or less). But pacience is the key to success. It can happen to you anytime, just do this and you will do a bit better. And also do what akorps said, about calling with the right odds when you are in the big blind

matiusaa said:

Well, it happens to everyone, and its not easy. What I do is to try to steal blinds when I can, and if cards still don't come, you will have to wait an acceptabble hand to shove all in, according to the blinds you have (this happens when you have around 10 or less). But pacience is the key to success. It can happen to you anytime, just do this and you will do a bit better. And also do what akorps said, about calling with the right odds when you are in the big blind

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4evertilted said:

Position position position.... and table image.. you need to be able to have enough chips so to have fold equity vrs Villian

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DrazaFFT said:

When i card dead i just fold and wait, and fold and wait and fold and fold and fold and then i blind myself to dead and i blame card dead and dont think that i could do something...

Here is how i think of it, when you are in late position or where ever you want, like every 10, 12 hand you raise, no madder what hand you have, it is even better if it is junk no speculative hand so if you get re raised you'll know what to do, if you get called fire on flop again and from there figure out how hand is developing... that way when you raise every 10th, 12th hand you'll make yourself image of 10% tight guy and you'll most likely steal with a raise, and if you manage to do that once in a one turn you'll have enough chips to survive till later stages...

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Jblocher1 said:

Insight at its finest... But basically just loosen up in late position as said before just play your game. Hands will come eventually. If you just fold and fold, and all of a sudden u wake up with AA and raise, and u have played no hands for an hour. It's likely that even the biggest donkeys won't give u action

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AugustWest said:

You have to loosen up from late position I think. It tough not to spew when you are frustrated.....

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You all basically stated the same thing "Loosen up in LP", "Steal more", and look for more or less spots to GII and/or steal..

Now that's not what O.P stated, he/she is stating when your on an aggressive table, with alot of loose players, shoving constantly and your card dead what can you do, now do you see where your advice and O.P's situation differ? He/She obviously knows and realizes in-order to go deep in any MTT (one needs to loosen up in L.P and steal more+get lucky at times), but O.P is stating being card dead and on a loose table with aggressive villains, what can I do when I'm card dead?

To the O.P as 1 poster stated, their really is nothing you can do in that type of a situation, I mean you can say more or less "To hell with it", and play ATC aggressively or limp pre flop alot, but since your speaking about hands such as 83o/92o and so forth, than as that poster suggested wait it out until your BB and just call if the raise is small enough, if not than fold and hope the cards eventually turn around..

I've been in similar situations numerous times this week alone and realistically best you can do is hope when it's your turn if you have about 9-14BB's left and all fold to you (If the BB and SB are tight players), Jam ATC, but this tends to back fire alot in the micros so I mean that's the only other suggestion I can think of ATM

The problem is when you are card dead for too long the players at the table think you're playing extra tight.

Then when you do pick up a hand, you raise and the table insta-folds. Not very amusing.

You simply must realize that MTTs are high in variance, and you are not going to cash every time. Bleeding to death waiting for primo hands is gonna be tough.

Use position wisely, and try and steal whenever the time is right (dynamics, image, etc.). Calling from the blinds with ATC can help if you flop a monster, but really you are going to be playing OOP, and will probably miss the flop with no showdown value whatsoever.

If you can keep yourself out of desperation mode, it will help you when you get a real hand.

However, this is all just my very humble opinion. I am a cash player, and TBH not a very good MTT player.

If you are too nitty, you will have a hard time in MTTs so I've heard.

I do that at times, and after getting 3-8o, 5-9o, 2-7o and on and on, and it gets down to desperate times, you really have no options but to donk a hand you feel might hit, preferably on the cut off or button. More times than not, you can notice how many big cards have hit the board and take a plunge after a bunch of big cards have hit, it's a bummer being in that situation, but what other options do you have? The only thing you can do to maximize your weak holdings is pick the closest two cards you get, like a 3-6, or 5-8 so at least you have more chances to hit SOMETHING.

Don't listen to any of the above and I will tell you the cure for card dead... Its easy just give your cards CPR and that 7-2 will turn into AA in no time

Or if you don't believe in modern medicine, you can always pray to the poker gods and sacrifice a live chicken while doing the give me better cards dance... The better cards dance is easy to learn if you don't know it it just goes like this...

And a heel and a toe and a heel and a toe and slide slide slide and a heel and a toe and a heel and a toe an slide slide slide,

wait wait wait and the loose with the best hand obv

If so, the computer dealer does not love you. Dont wait, choose something and play. Not always the AA or KK win. Y have seen a lot of hands with AA beat by 76 or 89.

Ak vs 78 60% vs 40% soo basicly f it. + if Ak missis flop and he is in early position you can bet. Ofcorse there is posibility of big pairs too.

loosen up ddouble up and sit back for some real hands again

frankly you're gonna have to try to get pf cheap (small raise call in BB) and then shove flop with any piece of it. can't really wait for big hands since they'll call anyway.

Depending on the stack sizes you might wanna 3bet bluff from time to time and raise with ATC from Late position. That way when you pick up a hand you might get more action.

Airburn said:

My last 3 MTT's I was so card dead it was unbeliveable!

no suited connectors no pairs and dont even think about top pairs just random hands like 3-8os and j-4 for hours and hours.

How do you guys play an MTT While being card dead the entire tourny?
This is a MicroBuy Turbo MTT with alot of donks where table image dosent matter at all and russians are going all in everytime, and people dont care if you didnt call for 20 hands straight and then go all in you will still get called.

And people will call you with just about anything so bluffing trying to steal is plain stupid and kicks you out pretty fast.

How can you make it to final table like this? I mean the blinds go up fast and people are going crazy around you untill bubble and even after bubble, Damn I Hate being card dead lol I Guess to make turbo Knockout mtt's final table you must get good cards!

How do you guys deal with Being card dead for so long?

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It's like an answer within the question that is asked.

In tournaments like this, it is almost going to be pure luck every time. Controlling your own image, taking note of other players' images, hand reading, and position play are some of the main components of a skillful poker game. You said it yourself - your image doesn't matter, their images and your ability to hand read is almost a non-factor because they'll be shoving frequently with anything ranging from bottom/middle pairs to full houses, and position play is almost an impossibility due to how aggressive every player is. The fast-paced blinds will mercilessly push out players that are card dead.

Conclusion - if you don't want to be at the mercy of the cards, find another tourney to play. Part of being a good player is finding the right games, and this does NOT sound like one of them.

Just remember they don't know what cards you have..You will sometimes have to represent cards you don't have.

Mr Sandbag said:

It's like an answer within the question that is asked.

In tournaments like this, it is almost going to be pure luck every time. Controlling your own image, taking note of other players' images, hand reading, and position play are some of the main components of a skillful poker game. You said it yourself - your image doesn't matter, their images and your ability to hand read is almost a non-factor because they'll be shoving frequently with anything ranging from bottom/middle pairs to full houses, and position play is almost an impossibility due to how aggressive every player is. The fast-paced blinds will mercilessly push out players that are card dead.

Conclusion - if you don't want to be at the mercy of the cards, find another tourney to play. Part of being a good player is finding the right games, and this does NOT sound like one of them.

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You are so right!
this game is horrible I have no idea why I was playing this lol, I guess cuz I made final table twice I thought its good, But I now realise it was cuz I was running good and getting alot of Top Pairs and good flops.
I will switch back to regular/deep stack mtt's where the blinds dont kill you if your going on long streaks of bad cards!

steveiam said:

Just remember they don't know what cards you have..You will sometimes have to represent cards you don't have.

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That is true, but it doesn't help you in these kind of freerolls. People will call you with anything. They don't seem to care or think about what you're holding. You can bet 4xBB and you get four people calling you. Trying to bluff and represent strong hand does no good in these kind of tournaments. Some are gonna call you even with one low pair and if you have nothing it's better just fold.

Just be patient. The cards can change and come in rushes at times after long dry spells of deadness. You need chips to make those pay off. Sure loosen up a little if you can play some cheap flop poker from position and see what might hit but get away from a hand if it doesn't. I don't worry about table image in thinking that I am tight and only bet with the nuts it makes bluffing easier when I see a opportunity to do it and you have no idea how long you will be with those players anyway. You can be bounced all over the place to different tables where no one knows your style anyway.

My last MTT I was tripled up by the 1st break with decent cards coming my way.. Then for the next two entire periods I went totally dead. But after the 3rd break I got cards again and managed to rebuild my stack and cash in the end.

It happens vey often that cards are dead, but If blinds are high then I go all-in with 3-5 , 4-6 ...

Waiting for strong hands is hard when you are card dead, especially when you are playing turbo's. Less time to wait for a good hand, you'll need to steal late position with worse hands if you have a few bb left.