Hauser_III
04-12-2005, 11:41 AM
I know there's a multi-table tourney forum, but 99.99% of the posts there are about hold em, so I thought I'd get better stud-related responses by posting this here.
I played in a 400+ stud tourney on Party last night, and finished 16th. After the second break, I was one of the overall tourney leaders, but lost a ton of chips on the first hand back, when my pocket A's didn't hold up against another player with the other two A's in the pocket and a third player who started with pocket Q's and ended up taking the pot. Two more fiercely contested, and also losing, hands, and I had dropped decently below the chip average, but didn't stop fighting. Top 48 paid, and I went to the felt with split Q's when it was down to about 56, so I know I was not playing afraid and just trying to sneak past the bubble point.
Once I won that hand and got past the bubble, I went absolutely card dead. And I do mean dead. I think the only two hands I played for the next hour or so were both bring-in defenses against potential steal attempts; I succeeded on one, but had to abandon the second one. I continued to be dealt hand after hand after hand of uncoordinated cards that were duplicated in multiple places, and couldn't get positioned for a good steal opportunity because of the action ahead of me (and the fact that I had the luck of having 3 large stacks at my table that weren't at all averse to wielding their stacks and calling down the shorties). As a result, I just bled off chips until the final hand, when I was down to 2000 chips with the bring-in at 300, completion at 1000 and final streets at 2000, and had (99)Q fail to improve against a (JJ)K that limped in.
The question is, what can I do in the card-dead, below-average chip-stack situation? If I have, say, a Q up, and there's a K behind me and 2 other people behind me, and everybody else has folded to the bring-in, should I be trying to steal when my hole cards are duplicated? At the betting levels once the bubble has been passed, if you're below the chip stack average, any unsuccesful completion to try and steal a pot puts a major, major dent in your stack; in fact, I'd say a completion at my table virtually pot-committed me once the bubble broke, because one or more of the large stacks were going to come along for the ride. Should I just pick a hand with two face cards, or two suited connectors, and gamble, or should I just ride the slow wave of ante/bring-in death while waiting for something that resembles a hand that's not going to be a dog to the big stacks that can, and will, afford to come along for the ride? I hated being that passive, but I also hated the prospect of fighting for a pot in a situation when I would be going in with semi-dead, uncoordinated cards.
I'm frustrated, because I finished 15th a few weeks ago in a somewhat similar situation, and I really want to make the final table and do some damage there. I'm sure my game has holes, and I'd like to correct as many as possible, and I want to figure out if the way I approached this card-dead situation is one of them.
I played in a 400+ stud tourney on Party last night, and finished 16th. After the second break, I was one of the overall tourney leaders, but lost a ton of chips on the first hand back, when my pocket A's didn't hold up against another player with the other two A's in the pocket and a third player who started with pocket Q's and ended up taking the pot. Two more fiercely contested, and also losing, hands, and I had dropped decently below the chip average, but didn't stop fighting. Top 48 paid, and I went to the felt with split Q's when it was down to about 56, so I know I was not playing afraid and just trying to sneak past the bubble point.
Once I won that hand and got past the bubble, I went absolutely card dead. And I do mean dead. I think the only two hands I played for the next hour or so were both bring-in defenses against potential steal attempts; I succeeded on one, but had to abandon the second one. I continued to be dealt hand after hand after hand of uncoordinated cards that were duplicated in multiple places, and couldn't get positioned for a good steal opportunity because of the action ahead of me (and the fact that I had the luck of having 3 large stacks at my table that weren't at all averse to wielding their stacks and calling down the shorties). As a result, I just bled off chips until the final hand, when I was down to 2000 chips with the bring-in at 300, completion at 1000 and final streets at 2000, and had (99)Q fail to improve against a (JJ)K that limped in.
The question is, what can I do in the card-dead, below-average chip-stack situation? If I have, say, a Q up, and there's a K behind me and 2 other people behind me, and everybody else has folded to the bring-in, should I be trying to steal when my hole cards are duplicated? At the betting levels once the bubble has been passed, if you're below the chip stack average, any unsuccesful completion to try and steal a pot puts a major, major dent in your stack; in fact, I'd say a completion at my table virtually pot-committed me once the bubble broke, because one or more of the large stacks were going to come along for the ride. Should I just pick a hand with two face cards, or two suited connectors, and gamble, or should I just ride the slow wave of ante/bring-in death while waiting for something that resembles a hand that's not going to be a dog to the big stacks that can, and will, afford to come along for the ride? I hated being that passive, but I also hated the prospect of fighting for a pot in a situation when I would be going in with semi-dead, uncoordinated cards.
I'm frustrated, because I finished 15th a few weeks ago in a somewhat similar situation, and I really want to make the final table and do some damage there. I'm sure my game has holes, and I'd like to correct as many as possible, and I want to figure out if the way I approached this card-dead situation is one of them.