Tight-Agressive Player, Always on Bubble

[HitmanHoldem]

I posted this somewhere else but it might better be suited for this forum:

Where I live we usually get together a game or so a week of anyhwere from $25-$50 buy in, more towards the $25 side though. It's a low stake game, and we usually have about 8-10 people.

I'm pretty confident that of the people I am the best player there, but as I write this post I guess I have to question that because of what I am about to ask. I, unlike most people there, value my starting hands. I'm a tight, but agressive player. When I'm in the pot, the majority of the time I can just steal the blinds because of the respect the players give me.

The problem I find myself in everytime is I'll hover a little above my starting chip count, usually up 50% or so while everyone else is playing wrecklessyly and doubling each other up on garbage. So we'll be down to the final 4, top 3 pay out and I'll be the low stack of the 4 people there. I find myself in this situation far too often where people have nice chip leads over me and use them to bully me around.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do so I can possibly get the chip lead early with the way I play? It just seems that with the way I play, I dont' lose money, I just win small pots which do add up, but not enough to contend later on. Each tournament there are a differnet 3-4 people who get lucky and double and triple up quick and have dominating stacks which are hard to penetrate into, espicially when the blinds go up.

My fundamentals of poker are solid. I know when it is mathematically right to make a call and I can read bluffs and bets on draws fairly well. Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what I can do to fix my game so I don't find myself in these precarious situations.

[daboze]

I think this is a big problem for a lot of otherwise solid players. You need to be able to change gears as the blinds go up. Shorthanded poker is very different from full-table strategy, especially once the blinds become a significant % of your stack. Playing tight is the best strategy early, but as the tournament moves into later rounds you need to become more aggressive.

There are a lot of good posts on this forum regarding bubble play, but the key points here are:

1) get more aggressive about stealing blinds

2) always push raither than raise if you have < 10xBB (known as the 10xBB rule)

3) push with a lot more hands than you are used to (do a search on fold equity). For example, from the SB you can profitably be pushing with nearly any 2 cards against a typical player.


my best advice is to do a search on "bubble play" and read anything you can (and pay attention to eastbay, daliman, lorinda, among others).

[Mr_J]

Chip lead early requires either a huge hand or a lot of luck. Great hands early on don't happen every game. Anyway, no point in having a large stack until you can use it (bully), and you won't be doing this before blinds become decent.

If you are usually the shortest stack by the time 4 are left, maybe you don't steal enough or are playing too tight? You say they are LAG, so maybe you need to lower your starting hand standards a little more.

If blinds are large and they have large stacks, you are not going to survive by playing tight.

[nuclear500]

Loosen you starting requirements, basically. You have to.

They aren't playing Poker and you are. All you can do is start playing your Q9 from early more often and your JT from late after a raise.

I have the same issue at a home game, but its not a tournament just cash. Bluffing usually doesn't work either, I've been called down by a pair of 5's when the board had 4 overs showing on the river.

You've got yourself in a pickle now where they know you don't play anything except big hands and won't really want to get involved with you. You forgot a fundamental idea of playing poker -- changing gears based on circumstance.

You need to start playing recklessly sometimes, have some bluffs called down. They have to believe you will gamble as well - just remember to solidly change gears when you do suddenly pick up top set on an uncoordinated rainbow board. You may be bluffing with A8 but pick up an 8 on the river and it's good because they played 79 and had top pair on the flop.

[HitmanHoldem]

Well the thing is I always make sure to adapt to my surroudings. I understand this is a key conecpt to playing poker. You need to change the way you play according to your opponents. I'll loosen up the hands I call with when I see certain players in the pot, and I'll fold when I see certain players raise a flop.

I think instead of playing wrecklessly and making them think That I'll make stupid decisions, I'd prefer to just use the tightness to my advantage, kind of like a Dan Harrington type of thing. It's too late to change the way people percieve me, and I'd prefer to be percieved as a better player than worse, so when I do bluff, I can probably get away with it.

So I guess it seems the consensus is it's just luck to get the big stack early and that I need to be more agressive when the blinds are higher. I know this is stated in Sklansky's Theory of poker, that you need to loosen up as the blinds increase. I guess I'll be more agressive from now on once the blinds are raised.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
Loosen you starting requirements, basically. You have to.

They aren't playing Poker and you are. All you can do is start playing your Q9 from early more often and your JT from late after a raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is horrible advice. you should loosen your standards, but not like this. if other players are getting all-in early on with horrible hands like QJ, then you should not splash around with hands that play poorly hot-and-cold (i.e., all-in preflop). never fold 99 pre-flop. if somebody raises and you have AJo in MP, go ahead and push. it's "safer" to fold these marginal hands, but you have a good opportunity to get a big pile of chips.

limp with pocket pairs from any position as long as the pre-flop is not too maniacal.

if you're short on the bubble and you're far below the others - say you have 1.5k against 4k, 4k, 5k - you have to be willing to call an all-in with a marginal hand if others are running you over. if you have a9 or 77 w/ only 8 bb's left and a bully raises to 4 bb on the button, it's worth a push (obv you have no folding equity).

[texasrattlers]

[ QUOTE ]
So I guess it seems the consensus is it's just luck to get the big stack early and that I need to be more agressive when the blinds are higher. I know this is stated in Sklansky's Theory of poker, that you need to loosen up as the blinds increase. I guess I'll be more agressive from now on once the blinds are raised.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. You and the posters hit the nail on the head. The last home tourney I played I was playing so tight early one of my "friends" made a point to ask if I had played a hand yet. I won a few hands after getting some good cards and was short stacked w/ 4 left (top 2 paid, started w/ 10) and blinds about 1/5 my stack. At that point I started pushing w/o even looking at my cards sometimes (I pretended to look at them but had I seen them I don't think I would be able to say "all in" w/ any confidence). Ended up in 2nd w/ a shot at first.