

Her only job was to play tight and let others bust first. She was in second or third place before or the hand, and was almost guaranteed a few pay jumps. The rest of the table nodded in agreement, and I chuckled on the inside. She immediately shrugged it off as a cooler, saying ”I only had 10 big blinds and a pair, I had to go with it”. In her spot, I’d have folded 9-9 without hesitation. She ended up losing the race against A-K and busting in 7 th place, much to my delight. The lady responds with a shove for 10 big blinds from UTG+2 holding 5-5. The chipleader - who has all the chips and has been playing nearly every hand - opens 3x from UTG. Then the following hand happened:ħ players left, with three players sitting on stacks of 4 big blinds or less(including myself). The only halfway decent opponent left was this local woman who was playing tight-aggressive poker. I was recently at the final table of a live turbo tournament in Australia. tough players, weak players, and everyone in between when you join Nick Petrangelo’s expert-level course. Note: Ready to start Winning (More) Poker Tournaments? Learn tactics that work vs. Make sure it’s you controlling your fate, and not some guy in a trucker hat raising every single pot. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” But don’t force it, and don’t let others force it. If your opponents will let you run them over, it’d be criminal to not try to do the whole table captain thing.

But your game plan must always depend on the opposition you’re facing and the situation you’re presented. Should you sometimes try to go after everyone when you have a big stack? Absolutely. In both instances, option 2 is far superior.

Which approach should you take?ġ) Put your table captain hat on and attack their blinds with any two cardsĢ) Try to play solid poker, and avoid putting yourself in tough spots against superior competition The players to your left are Fedor Holz, Doug Polk, and Phil Ivey, who all have less chips than you do. You have a big stack, and get moved to a new table. Should your strategy be to:ġ) Fold every hand and let your table captain do his thingĢ) Attack his reckless opens with abandon and take the dead moneyĮxample 2: Day two of the WSOP Main Event. The big stack to your right is opening seemingly every hand. And sometimes the best thing you can do as a big stack is to just play your cards.Įxample 1: Nearing the bubble of a tournament. There are times when you need to play extremely loose as a short stack (in fact, you very often should!). However – and this is where people get it terribly wrong – that doesn’t mean you should take the black & white approach of big stack=aggressive, short stack=tight. In fact, your stack size is probably the most important single factor. When deciding on the best course of action during a hand, there are a myriad of factors to consider. You get dealt two cards you play the hand to your best ability repeat. Poker is not a game of soccer, where you set a game plan ahead of time to execute on the field. This is nonsense.įirst of all, each hand is an individual challenge. Similarly, the biggest stack at the table is often assumed to take on the role of ”table captain” and the lesser stacks are expected to let him or her be in charge. Some players assume that you need a big stack in order to effectively put pressure on your opponents. It’s tough to spend time at a live poker table without hearing all kinds of weird myths and false truths waiting to be proven wrong. Poker is a game where only about 1% of all players make money, yet many of the remaining 99% still think they’re good–just unlucky.Īnd boy, do all these “unlucky” people think they have it all figured out. This is particularly common at the poker table. Everyone seems to have a strong opinion nowadays, and many people present their views as absolute truth.
