Avoiding Big Pots

I've heard top pros talk about avoiding big pots. I've wondered -- how do you do that.

Here's kind of what I mean ...

Today in the PokerStars Big Stack tournament, we're down to fewer than 140 players (99 pay). I've been playing tight, conservative. It had been a long time since I'd tried stealing the blinds, because I didn't really have the stack and a lot of guys were defending their blinds and/or a lot of callers (apprently the gap concept isn't well known amoung this group of players). I had recently doubled up, though, after having my QQ hold up. I had 27,000 in chips, with the average stack probably being in the range of 35,000 chips. I get 9,9 UTG and raise 2,000. It folds arodn to the button who pops all in. I have him covered by about 4,000 chips. This is the second time during the course of the tournament that he'd pulled this move on me. Previously, I held 10,10 and hadn't seen him go all in before, so I had to be wary, I thought of a bigger pocket pair and so I folded (after a good deal of thought). He'd also seen me fold a few times to overbets after I'd raised. I finally decide he's probably on two big unpaired cards. Sure enough, A,Q off suit. He gets lucky. I don't.

So, I got involved in a big pot and it crippled me (I busted in 130th when my pocket tens ran up against another A,Q hand). Would it be better to fold and wait for a better time? But if you fold every time somebody comes over the top, aren't you just encouraging such behavior, that you're telling the other players you're weak?

I really don't like risking my tournament life on coin flips if I can avoid it, but I'm not entirely convinced I made a bad play here. My read on the guy was right. I just got unlucky.

I use this one example, but I ask the question because I've wondered about this before -- exactly what is meant by avoiding big pots -- does that mean laying down if somebody goes all in for a big amount of chips unless you have a monster hand? Online, it seems like you'd be laying down a lot of hands, then.

[JackOfSpeed]

No one has ever won a tournament without winning a coinflip. Quit yer' bitchin'.

[ansky451]

[ QUOTE ]
No one has ever won a tournament without winning a coinflip. Quit yer' bitchin'.

[/ QUOTE ]

What a horrible response, to a pretty good question.

Who's bitchin'? I'm asking.

And everything I've read recently about tournament play talks about avoiding coin flips in early stages. When I had a coin flip with Q,Q, I didn't mind. It was double up or go home time, but maybe in the case where I had 9,9, that was a big pot I should have/could have avoided. Or would I just be playing too chicken?

[TomHimself]

im guessing the blinds were 400/800 when you made it 2k to go UTG w/ 99? then he shoves allin i think you have to fold cuz with a structure like the deep stack you have plenty of time to play and dont have to play for coinflips. u may be a lil below average but still have a decent stack sompared to blinds and antes

[ansky451]

Avoiding big pots is all about context.

In general, if say you are 2nd in chips, and approaching the FT and the chip leader is at your table, you should probably avoid big pots with him with marginal hands. This isn't always true, especially if your opponent is thinking about this, as you can take a lot of advantage of his conservative approach.

If you are at a very weak tight table, and can steal lots of pots, chances are you want to be avoiding big pots. If you can steal blinds liberally then you don't "need" to get into a huge pot with a coinflip situation, although depending on the circumstance it may be correct to do so.

Yes, I it was 400/800 with a 50 ante.

[bmxreed36]

To me, avoiding big pots applies moreso to early tournament situations. Keeping the pot small instead of making a huge check-raise that may not work on the flop makes your decisions less difficult and stressful on further streets when you are either out of position, have a marginal hand, it is a scary board or there are many possible scarecards to come, etc. Also, maybe just calling a raise instead of reraising with a good hand so you can re-evaluate on the flop. Later on, as the blinds get higher, you will have to gamble at some point and win a couple coinflips.

As far as the specific hand you used as an example, taking a pair against two overcards with some money in the pot already is not bad. Putting him specifically on two overcards before you call is getting a little dangerous. If you had a specific read on him that he would only raise but less than all-in with a higher pocket pair but that he pushed hands like AK and AQ or maybe low pocket pairs or something, you could argue for a call.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No one has ever won a tournament without winning a coinflip. Quit yer' bitchin'.

[/ QUOTE ]

What a horrible response, to a pretty good question.

[/ QUOTE ]

Was gonna say the same. It was a perfectly legit question that i also would like some opinions on. Playing a semi-primium hand UTG like 99 always seems like i am asking to be stolen from when i make it deep into tournaments (not often as the pokerdb will tell you....i make my money in the SNG scene). I do have to say in the specific case of the amount of chips compared to the blinds in the Deepstack Tournament, that this would be an easy fold for me. 68BB left when aces and kings get dealt 1 out of 220 times each. It seems to me like you can wait...make this same exact play and expect to get paid, but I'm prolly just a donk so i really want to hear what people like Betgo and ExitOnly have to say.

[EverettKings]

What's wrong with big pots? I love big pots when I have a big hand.

I think you're missing the context of this concept. There's the idea of pot control when you're deep stacked and have a pretty good yet vulnerable hand (maybe like AJ on a J96 flop). This doesn't mean that you shouldn't put money in the pot, but you have to be aware of when the pot is growing to stack-threatening size. You don't really want to be put to a tough decision for a large number of chips when the pot's been inflated and your hand is well short of monstrous.

In this situation, preflop relatively short stacked and facing all in decisions, the avoiding big pots idea is completely irrelevant. Just put him on a range and either call or fold. His push is really weird, but if you don't think he'll push his monster pairs here then I'd call. If you think he'd play AA-88, AK/AQ that way then I'd pass.

Everett