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Late stage MTT close to bubble with big stack

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  1. Poker Invest Poker Invest is offline

    Premi De Mar
    Spain

    Posts: 63
    Joined: Nov 05

    Oct 8th, 2010 (10/8/2010 9:18am)

    Do any of you have this problem?

    I find myself sitting in a late stage of a tournament, close to the bubble with a very healthy chip stack ( I mean healthy enough to take this tournament down) and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, I decide to play like a dumbass fool: I decide to loosen up and raise small stacks and try and steal more and call small stacks 10X BB all in raises with my Ace rag. And then I lose a portion of my stack and still make it to the money but nowhere near the final table. It's a s if, I suddenly feel the urge to accumulate chips out of fear of not having enough chips for the final table and therefore I start taking more risks to accumulate them. Now when this strategy works, I usually do well, but when it fails (and it fails most of the time) I come short to making the "real" money.

    I had to post this because yesterday, I played a couple of tournaments where I was chipleader in both of them in the late stage and I cashed in one of them in 9th place and the other I went out on the bubble.

    I feel like I have a huge leak here and need help. Any thoughts? Do any of you have or had this problem and if you did, what was your mindset to evercome it?

    Thanks
    Edited By: Poker Invest Oct 8th, 2010 at 09:26 AM
     
  2. ReBinkRiver ReBinkRiver is offline

    Olympia, WA
    United States

    Posts: 315
    Joined: Aug 08

    Oct 8th, 2010 (10/8/2010 9:21am) in reply to Poker Invest

    Maybe you're being results oriented?

    It sounds like you grasp the concept of picking on people near the bubble, and unless you're as low as $5 or $11 tournaments - those plays are going to be super profitable near the bubble. You shouldn't necessarily loosen up, as much as wait for good spots against nitty small stacks near the bubble (late position, one gapper suited 68s or better etc). Near the bubble I actually focus against other big stacks and medium sized stacks as they have less likelihood to shove super wide near the bubble if you have them covered.
  3. AJyowler AJyowler is offline

    Austin, TX
    United States

    Posts: 610
    Joined: May 06

    Oct 8th, 2010 (10/8/2010 9:45am) in reply to Poker Invest

    also refresh on your icm learning.. read threads crunch #s... fine line between being aggro and wreckless
  4. Ahurazor Ahurazor is offline

    Bathurst
    Australia

    Posts: 531
    Joined: Jan 08

    Oct 8th, 2010 (10/8/2010 9:46am) in reply to AJyowler

    experience, stay patient and pick spots, dont force anything,itll all fall in place, i sometimes appear asif im doing what you say, but when im reshipping 37 pref into aces, i argue i got cold decked ;).
    279 2
  5. hushpuckena hushpuckena is offline

    Natchez, MS
    United States

    Posts: 2,005
    Joined: Feb 08

    Oct 8th, 2010 (10/8/2010 10:05am) in reply to Ahurazor

    A while ago, I read an interview given by Layne Flack in which he stated that he'd often go after the medium-stacked players, as they wouldn't be willing to go to war without a big hand, whereas shorter stacks would often be more likely to play back at him. You need to be disciplined and look several moves ahead, in much the same way chess players do. This will take time and effort, but patience will pay off in the end.

    You've no idea how many times I've been on the felt and watched a big stack abuse the bubble cos they know they're supposed to, but that shouldn't extend to opening a weak hand from lp when the players still to act are very short and a shove would leave you priced in for a decent portion of your stack.
  6. ATrainBoston ATrainBoston is offline

    Boston, MA
    United States

    Posts: 147
    Joined: Jan 06

    Oct 8th, 2010 (10/8/2010 4:15pm) in reply to hushpuckena

    When your stack is big and you are in the money, obviously the pots are much bigger and much more valuable in actual dollar values then the piddling pots early in the tournaments. The best players seem to have much better instincts and take much better calculated risks in these crucial late-tourney pots. Maybe you are being too careless in some of these spots. If you have 90k and you go against a guy with "only" 30k, remember his stack is worth about ten times his actual buy in, in terms of real dollars. So yeah of course you play aggressively with a big stack but you still have to limit your spots to some extent so you don't spew away your chips.
     
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