Single Table Tourney with Loose aggressives.

[Drunken Monkey]

I play in a tournement pretty frequently with two LAGs, they play any two and bet with any piece. Sometimes with no piece. There are a few calling stations and when they raise you better look out. Preflop raising seems to come and go. Sometimes ten hands in a row out and there will be very little raising before the flop and then the next ten it will be quite the oppisite.

I know that the best way to play against these types of oppenents are to constantly show them the best hand. This works when you are getting the cards. Tonight I couldn't get a hand to save my life and when I finally get a good hand the flop was just missing with me.

I think that just showing down the best hand strat is still the best but is there anything I can do other than wait. Usually they know that I play tight, but they do not fear my raises even if I keep betting.

Tonight I was constatly short stacked the whole tourney and wanted to play but I just couldn't get the cards. I don't want that to be my only excuse because I know that there must be a better way than just waiting.

I have tried betting medium hands, but they are constantly getting raised and middle pair with a raiser and a call just doesn't look good. I try to get a feel for what they are betting and most of my reads are pretty good. But usually I bet for value and then get raised and I have to muck my hand.

I tried to just get all my chips in there preflop with the better hands that way I can't be out bet by them, but I don't think that is a good strategy. For one they will pay me off when I hit if I didn't push and also when I miss I can easily let go.

If there is any advice on playing in this sort of game when the cards don't seem to be coming. It was quite funny though. On like 5 hands there was lots of action and I would just casually throw away my trash. I was confident then that the cards would have to come. Then I get AJs in the big blind and it is the best hand I have seen in about two hours. It gets folded to me in the big blind. I just had to shake my head. Maybe there is no advice you can give me I just have to wait out my luck.

[Drunken Monkey]

I am reviewing the 10+1 SnG strategy guide(will this help?) and find that I play very similar to this. I am really tight early on and then lossen up when there is 4-5 left and then tighten up again when it gets three handed.
In middle levels I find that I put more value on mid-suited connecteers because they will pay off when I hit since the type of table I am playing at gives me a lot of implied odds. When I do see a flop with these hands I rarely semi-bluff when I am up against 3 or more oppenents since the added bluffing value of the semi-bluff is not as strong. I hardly ever refire at the flop if I miss my overcards because I don't see them folding enough to show profit.

Should I not play these middle suited connectors? (Usually 9Ts lowest I go) If in the blinds I lossen up based on the raising and usually call all lower pairs and and 56s and up). This is true if I am closing the action or if I am sure the BB will not reraise. Today the guy in my big blind rerose a lot of hands and I didn't even consider these cards when faced with a min/low raise in the small blind. I felt that it was an auto fold. There are few rerasises to reraises so is this thinking wrong?

This usually leaves me short stacked as the game progresses unless I mangage to pick up a monster in the middle stages. When on the button should I be considering to steal a lot even though I don't think that the players will fold more than about 50% of the time. What should be that hands that I am pushing in on when I have about 8-15 BB. If I am not the chipleader I usually average about that when getting into three handed. We play out to only two places since only 7-8 people play. But I probably have the same amount of third places as I do First. I don't think I have ever finished in any other places.

Also, in the very early stages there is a lot of just calling the big blind and very little raises. This is usually because with blinds 1/2 (~300-350 starting chips) any raise is just called by 80% of the field. If there is a big raise there is usually one or two callers, but I don't see anyone picking up a meduim to big pot with out a showdown no matter the raise.

Hopefully, this helps to see if I am going wrong somewhere. And I would apprieciate any advice.

[Drunken Monkey]

Here is a hand against one of the LAGs. He likes being the bully and pushing people around with a big stack which is the case right now.

I am dealt AKs in the SB (5 handed.) There is one limper with a small stack, but not too small. Probably about 20ish BB(BB=16) Then the LAG in question(stack of about 650-700) raises it to 60 on the button. Knowing that his raising standards are fairly loose in this situation I reraise to 120 (I have just under 400 after this). The BB and limper folds.

It is now heads up and I know that I have a way better hand than his. Flop comes T96 with two of my suit. I check and he bets 60. My read on him is that he likes to bully but if he has a hand he tries to bet small to get people to pay him off. This bet seemed like he was trying to play the fact that I am tight. Plus the flop came with no face cards. He is propably thinking that this flop completly missed me. After thinking for about 20 seconds about whether it was a bet to push me out of the hand I decide that he has a weak hand so I push all my chips in the middle. He looks disgusted and I know that my read was right. But he calls any way with J6s in clubs not hearts. His pair of sixes hold up and I am done.

Should I have not risked my whole stack on something like this? I try to never semibluff, but then seemed like the perfect time. Earlier he had shown he was capable of folding small parts of the boards to big bets.

I think that the proper play was to just call and hope I hit on the turn. There was 330 in the pot at the time giving me 5.5:1(I estamated 5:1 at the time). To make my flush on the turn or pair my A or K makes my odds of hitting about a 3:1 or better? Now that I look back on it I wish I would have just called but I think that if I had missed he would have bet even bigger into me and probably ruin my odds for the river. Plus this is a tournement so I didn't want to be leaking that many chips chasing a Flush.

Thoughts?