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meatbuoy · Pair Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 29

I was playing a SnG the other day and something I don't necessarily love happened. In the first 20-25 hands, I received an inordinate number of AK, QQ, and JJ hands, none of which brought in chips. We were down to 4 handed in a six-max table after 30 hands. I picked up AT, A8, AJ, and KK consecutively on the button. My chip stack remained the same after some unfortunate flops. My image was effectively ruined and my cards ran dry soon afterwards. How do you steal/keep up with increasing blinds with this image?

Wayniac · Forum Pro Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 617

It can definitely be tough. The important thing to look at here is what you are raising with, and what your table image APPEARS to be.

For example, it wouldn't have been unwise to just limp with some of those hands instead. Others are strating to perceive you as hyper aggressive, so they're going to be happier to get involved in large pots with you with mediocre holdings. With that said, you should consider limping with some of your hands like AJ and AT instead, so you aren't burning through chips if you miss the flop and they push. Also, if you happen to hit, and bet out, since they already perceive you as hyper aggressive, they may actually pay you off with something like middle pair or top pair bad kicker.

Another solution is to just push preflop since you've been missing a lot of flops. They might call with a slightly weaker hand, and now when you both miss, they can't outplay you and push you out.

But sometimes... you're just destined to lose. Doesn't matter what you do sometimes. Sometimes, you have sessions like this, and just go nowhere anyway. What we, as good poker players, try to do is still try to minimize losses when situations like this occur, but sometimes there is just nothing we can do.

Starvingwriter · Full House Joined: 03 May 2008 Posts: 174

My advice, I guess, is either to mix up your play to control your image (limping on occasion even if a raise is typically more profitable) or, what I usually do, is just try to tighten up some, while maintaining the aggressive image if you can.

Of course that's not possible if your cards completely dry up, but in one recent SnG, on the bubble, I was just running insanely hot and raising with great hands often. Everyone was folding to me, because I could make legitimate preflop reraises and keep the pressure on post-flop if I got called. One of the players (a close second to my chip lead) was extremely aggravated by my play, calling me a donk and a maniac and everything else he could think of. So, I tightened up a little, but kept playing as many pots as I could, then saw myself with QQ in the SB with the tilted guy in the BB.

I already knew I was getting all his chips - I got folded two, then raised to 3x the BB in a typical steal attempt, and he shoved at me. I called, and he flips over A2s.

All you can really do is play counter to your image. In your case, I don't see how you could possibly pull any outright steals, but I would still be attempting to steal with "normal hands" - hands where you might possibly be going in with the best hand (Ax, etc), that play well after the flop (suited connectors), or where the postflop value is obvious (pocket pairs).

Of course, if your cards totally dry up, you're humped. try to conserve chips as long as possible (since your bluffs will get called anyway) and hope for the best.

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