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How To Deal With Bad Cards In A Sit N Go
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06 February 2006
Ryan, like every other novice player, has often blamed defeat on a run of cold cards. When you become an experienced player able to play different styles of poker you come to realize that "bad cards" is not a legitimate excuse. Playing your cards in the incorrect style is the real problem here.
If you want to play a tight, conservative game (Ryan`s natural game) then you need certain factors in your favor. You need to win a big early pot to establish your chip stack, and to establish your image as a serious player. Or you need a run of good cards. These will enable you to win several pots, either showing down or not, and you will still get to the same point: you can now pick and choose your spots because you have the chips and the persona to do it. You can get cheeky and bluff, or just wait for more good cards.
But what happens in a SNG when you get no good cards early on? You will find that a tight strategy now is useless. If you fold consistently, and your chip stack dwindles it will be tough to knock your opponents off their hands. And if you`re forced into a race, even if you hold the best hand going in, you could easily get knocked out of the SNG. You cannot blame your opponent either - he holds AQ and you raise for the first time in the tournament. You could really have anything now. You could be desperate, or you might just be a weak player. He is entitled to look you up (even if he holds KJ or JT he might do this), and unless you fell into AA (and even then) you could be in trouble.
You must try to play in hands early on in a SNG, and play at least one of them aggressively. Do it when the antes are low and when you have position. Even if you have to raise on the button with 7T it is worth it. If you raise it to 80 when the blinds are 10/20 you might take it down there. Or you might hit the flop and win a big pot, or win it with a bet after the flop purely due to good position.
I am not interested in stories of how you never got a pair or an A and couldn`t do anything. I`m not saying it is easy or always possible to win if the cards are cold, but you need to push hard when this happens. Passive play guarantees a loss, as does conservative play in this scenario. You must still be selective, there is a big difference between aggressive play and maniacal play - because the longer you survive, the more likely it becomes that you will get dealt a legitimately strong hand, so please don`t raise every pot with your 34 unsuited. But don`t let the table forget about you otherwise they will never respect you in the crunch...
Posted by: Marc at 16:04
0 Comments
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