On The Offensive When Faced With A Cold Deck

[Desdia72]

fellow 2+2ers, how to you handle cold decks/bad run of the cards in a SNG? do you just sit back and muck your hands to the blinds or do you resort to pushing on the offensive with more marginal hands in order to get lucky? do suited connectors start looking like the Power I during first and goal at the 5 yard line? it got me to thinking how one handles a cold deck when i saw a guy not only call a raise preflop, but a big reraise over that with 7 8o and he flopped trip 8s. he then caught an 8 on the river for quads. everybody at the table was stunned at the showndown when we saw the 7 8o. sure, the guy got lucky, but if he was getting the kind of cards i was getting, maybe he thought he would take a shot just to see what would happen.

[mcj0014]

What? Now, Desdia, I'm an admitted amateur here, but this sounds totally contrary to first principles.

[PITTM]

playing like that is a very bad idea. how many boards look good for 78o?


rj

[SixgunSam]

I'm glad you made this post because this is something I wanted advice on as well. Typically, I try to win the first couple of hands that I enter to establish myself at the table and later on I can loosen up and get more respect for my bets and raises. I find it much more difficult to make my mediocre hands pay off when I havent shown a big hand. Cold cards are even worse at an aggressive table where your stack is below average because you havent found a hand to call or make a raise. I went through a SnG the other day where over 58 hands, the best cards I saw were A9off and 66. I had never had a run of cards so bad.

Before long, I realised that the blinds had gotten to the point where my stack dictated that I push if I entered a pot. I figured I could keep waiting for something close to premium because by law of averages I will get something at some point. In the end, I had to push with T9 because the blinds were going to eat me up. How do I play this? Should I have tried to buy the pot with a garbage hand earlier? At what point do you stop looking for that first good hand and just fire away with garbage? I'm looking forward to responses on this topic.

[PITTM]

i guess you *could* wait for everyone to fold to you on the button and try to steal more often if the cards are that cold. i would advise picking a better hand then 78o though. i usually just play the same regardless of if im getting cards or not. just try to be patient and make some moves when youre getting the cards

rj

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
What? Now, Desdia, I'm an admitted amateur here, but this sounds totally contrary to first principles.

[/ QUOTE ]

well, it was a $5 + $.50 SNG. people say you gotta take chances, i've seen worse. still, i got me to thinking how the experienced players handle this. i always see the better players showing big hands they pushed or how well the did in a SNG but i hardly ever see them posts how they handle cold decks. anybody can look good when the deck hits you with A A, K K, Q Q, A K and so forth and they all hold up. what about when you get K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img],
Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]? and you keep getting those kinds of hands? when i started that thread about "I'm Not Saying Online Poker Is Rigged But...", a cold deck was partly my motivation. you find you stack getting eaten down with raises with A K that hit a ragged flop and three bet at it, or you limp with a hand like A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] in an unraised pot and the flop hit [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] with no 10 or Ace, or get eaten down to the bone by the blinds holding crap.

[Desdia72]

push with on the bubble with such and such, but what about through the meat of the tourney when Iceman keeps touching your hole cards. it's hard to be aggressive and confident with your play when you're the shortstack with 1000 in the BB (200) holding 9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] with a bigstack raising to to 1000 with virtual any hand.

[byronkincaid]

but I am never, ever going to click on a Desdia72 thread again. TROLL.

[RPatterson]

No one has said anything about the bubble dumbass. You are beyond hope.

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
but I am never, ever going to click on a Desdia72 thread again. TROLL.

[/ QUOTE ]

already one click too many.