Stalemates and Mixing It Up

[CrisBrown]

Hi All,

How many times do you see this happen? Down to the final 150% (e.g.: 6 left in a tourney that pays 4) and everyone at the table gets squeaky tight. Many times the pot is folded to the BB. No bets are called. You're just trading the antes and blinds around and around, with no noticeable change in the standings.

Stalemate.

So how to break it?

I've found that just making a couple of semi-loose calls --e.g.: calling an all-in from a smaller stack with Q9s -- will often shake a table up and get people playing again. It may cost you a few chips, or a lot of chips, but if you are good from a short stack it might be worth the risk. Because now, when people start ragging around, you can go back to solid poker and clean up.

This happened to me tonight in a $33 two-table SNG on PokerStars. I was the chip leader coming to the final table with about T8500, and we got down to six, and the table stalemated. I made two loose calls that knocked me down to around 2600, but that was enough to shake up the table. Twenty minutes later, I had T18,000 -- one steal on QJs, put another player all-in with JJ and held up vs. his A9, put another player all-in with TT and held up vs. his K7 -- and we were down to 3 players.

It's a risky strategy, to be sure. And you have to be able to play with confidence from a shorter stack. But when the table stalemates, it's sometimes worthwhile to take a knock or two in order to get people playing again.

Cris

[sam h]

There's also the more conventional solution, which involves adding to your stack rather than substracting: Keep stealing their blinds. One of the worst mistakes bad players make in these sit and goes, in my opinion, is tightening up too much when the money is close and the blinds are big. Take advantage.

No matter what results you got, tough to imagine that a strategy which involves losing 70% of your stack is going to be all the profitable.

[DougBrennan]

Cris,

My only thought here, and I'm not disputing you at all, is this:
If it's effectively a stalemate, you're not losing any ground, why risk chips to break it up? You are clearly a +EV player, why make a -EV move when you don't have to?

Those are more or less rhetorical questions I suppose but I do wonder why you feel the need to break up the logjam.

But hey, if it works, who am I to question it? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[CrisBrown]

Hi Doug and Sam,

Well, neither call was grossly out of line. I called with KTs one time (and was up against QJos, but he hit a Q), and with Q9s the other (against A7os, nobody hit so he wins with A-high). Both were decent calls -- I had paint, straight and flush outs -- but neither was what I consider a "strong" call (medium or big pocket pair, AK, Ace-Face suited).

As for why not steal their blinds, Sam, on about 50% of the pots, someone would go all-in ahead of me. No callers, and they take the blinds. (The rest were folded to the BB, and on hands where I was out of position and/or had trash.) I was staying close to even on blinds, but slipping slowly, and the shorter stacks were slowly drawing even with each other (which is not to my advantage as the big stack).

Everyone was playing "bubble tight" and basically I wanted to shake them up, rattle the bushes so to speak, so I could get them to challenge one another. I didn't INTEND to lose 70% of my stack -- as I said, I had good outs on both calls -- but I was willing to take that risk to get people to mix it up.

Once they did, I was in a position to take advantage. And because they'd seen two loose calls -- I even said I was getting bored and tired -- I got action on my big hands and busted them.

Yes, of course it's a risky strategy. I don't use it every time. But when the turtles get too far into their shells, it's difficult to chop their heads off. So I sometimes do try to tease them out so I can get at them. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Cris

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Once I'm the big stack, I've always found it easier (and more common) to steal my way to victory as opposed to winning by getting my bigger hands paid off.

Once the blinds get big, I would never do anything that I thought would cause me to get more action, at least not with that being my goal. I think you'd be better off raising with those garbage hands you passed on, when you could've been the first player in, as opposed to calling in a spot where you feel you're behind and not quite getting pot odds.

If you're saying you would only call in a spot where the situation by itself justified the call as a +EV call, but as a side effect it looked like a loose call and got you more action, then fine. However, in spots like that, I like the old-fashioned rules where you didn't have to show your hand when you lost in these all-in spots. After my cards were in the muck, I would claim to have held a strong hand that missed, as I want people to fold to me, not call me, at this point in a tourney.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[CrisBrown]

Hi Greg,

<Once the blinds get big, I would never do anything that I thought would cause me to get more action, at least not with that being my goal.>

I agree and in most situations that's how I play. If the shorter stacks are mixing it up with each other, trying to get over the bubble, move up, and generally doing my dirty work for me, I don't want callers and I'm happy with the blinds. That having been said, I'm usually on a hand that has good outs if called.

I was referring to a different table dynamic, however, a situation where the action is all-in-fold-fold-fold-fold, around and around, and nothing is really changing. This kind of table can get into a psychological rhythm -- "I'll wait for big cards and move in to catch the blinds" -- and become almost a Pavlovian system.

I don't want my opponents in a psychological rhythm. I don't want them to be able to predict how the table will react when they take some action. I don't want them to be able to look at their cards when they're dealt and know how that hand will play (or not). I want them scrambling, off-balance, uncertain, and if I can manage it, panicked.

Once I get that situation -- by whatever means -- I can sit back, watch them devour each other, and wait for good steal opportunities and good cards to call them down on.

In most cases, the blinds and stack sizes combine to create that climate of desperation, and when they do, I agree that I'm happy to pick up the antes and blinds on my steals and have no callers. But when that isn't working, then I want to create it some other way.

Cris

[Bozeman]

"I was referring to a different table dynamic, however, a situation where the action is all-in-fold-fold-fold-fold, around and around, and nothing is really changing. This kind of table can get into a psychological rhythm -- "I'll wait for big cards and move in to catch the blinds" -- and become almost a Pavlovian system."

If this is happening, better to make a bare-assed steal than call with a worse than 50/50 hand. Just make more than one steal per round.

Glad it worked for you,
Craig