Check out our brand new Local Poker Communities! Get updates and interact with poker players in your area.
Visit the United States Poker Community | Visit the California Poker Community | Read more about the Launch of P5s Local

Completely card dead runs

Reply to Thread
  1. enph enph is offline

    Madisonville, KY
    United States

    Posts: 123
    Joined: Oct 05

    May 25th, 2006 (5/25/2006 4:37am)

    After busting out of another tourny when I went card dead for the 4123321 time, I finally have to ask for advice. I'm going to give an example but remember this are going to be geared more towards a lower limit buy-in.

    EXAMPLE: You catch a few good hands the first 2 stages, say you double up with AA, win 2 big pots with AK and 77; you now have 4,600 at 15/30. Suddenly you go completely card dead, the best hand you see is A8s UTG at 25/50 and you have no plans to really mix it up because your table has been fairly full of maniacs that are in the first hour. You cruise on through the first hour making the break with 4,700 after picking up a few small pots. Second hour starts you stay fairly tight, getting absolutely no hands in EP, every time you get a raisable hand in LP theres a raise infront of you, you obviously have no intentions of playing to a raise. Before you know it, you've dropped down to 2,100 after you picked up AK and wiffed, c-bet and got re-raised all in. You make it past the break with 2,300, blinds are 200/400 25 ante, you're push fold. Your AJ on the button is cracked by A7o, gg you.

    Now, you can clearly make certain moves here, say you can re-raise an EP raiser who has been fairly active with a hand like 89s, KJs, to isolate or take the pot down right there, but what can you do when people are willing to stick their whole stack in preflop with all pairs, and A9o and all broadway cards when they have 10k at 100/200? You can't necesarily out play these people because you're not going to get them off an Ace or two broadway cards preflop. Are you just stuck waiting for those good premium hands to get paid off on or maybe do you eventually have to just call a few raises with inferior hands hoping to flop big? Obviously you can do the latter, but say these people are raising 5-6x the BB preflop like the maniacs they are, this is seriously going to hurt your stack after 2-3 calls and misses.

    But back to being completely card dead. I don't mean you're not seeing AK and AQ, I mean KTo UTG just looked like AA to you, you're not even getting suited cards now. You're stuck at an active table who seems to never fold preflop unless you're pushing all in. So is that what you have to do? Find a player who has been fairly active in his raises and just push in on him with a marginal holding? Obviously if you don't start picking up chips soon you're going to just blind out, so do you want to just take a 40/60 gamble now? Do you maybe loosen up your raising hands in MP now to try and start picking up chips again? Maybe you just have to start playing some what maniacal yourself?

    This is my current problem in MTTs, I find myself going card dead, becoming overly weak-tight in the middle stage where I need to pick up chips but I just can't figure a way around it.
  2. phenompoker phenompoker is offline

    New Orleans, LA
    United States

    Posts: 1,011
    Joined: Dec 05

    May 25th, 2006 (5/25/2006 5:04am) in reply to enph

    I never thought it was possible for me to get deep in tournaments as i was constantly cashing, cashing, cashing, but for only like my buy in back plus a small amount more so it would take me cashing in like 20 tournaments in a row to even come close to the $ amount in one final table if i made it that far. Im certainly no expert but what i found really helped my game was to loosen up alot more in the middle levels and try to pick up more pots and grow my stack rather than grinding grinding grinding like i used to. Sorry if this info is misleading, just my opinion. Hopefulyl someone with greater success in mtt's will answer you.
  3. enph enph is offline

    Madisonville, KY
    United States

    Posts: 123
    Joined: Oct 05

    May 25th, 2006 (5/25/2006 5:16am) in reply to phenompoker

    Well you see, that's where I'm stuck. I know your obviously want to loosen up and get all the chips you can, but when you loosen up you're obv. raising more in LP, but are going to start calling more raises with drawable hands and maybe even questionable hands like KTs or something and start raising in EP with hands you might normally throw away in that position?
    Thread Starter
  4. acvet acvet is offline

    Wollongong
    Australia

    Posts: 128
    Joined: Feb 06

    May 25th, 2006 (5/25/2006 1:18pm) in reply to enph

    play 2-3 trnys at once make your moves (incl. calling 4-5 BB bet w 78s) in levels 4-8, with a little luck at least one of those trnys turns well for you.

    playing too tight does not work in 10-30 mtt's at all and even at 50-200 it does not take oyu too deep
Reply to Thread

Similar Threads