Avoiding post-flop play against better opponents

[Yuv]

Is it a basic mistake? When I play against world class online players (i.e. Johnny Bax, SamENole, The Shrike etc) I tend to play a push/fold kinds of game if i'm "stuck" playing against them.

I'm not talking about premium hands, obviously, but I tend to avoid post flop with hands like medium pocket pairs (88-JJ) AJ-AQ and so on. Is it smart to try and avoid situation where they force me to make a decision, or should I try and out play them and learn from my mistakes?

- I'm talking about mid-game, mostly. End-game would become a push/fold game anyhow.

[Sam T.]

I think that it is often a good idea to stay away from the sharks, but there are also cases when you can use it to your advantage, particularly if they don't know that you know who they are. (Did that make any sense?)

In a Stars tournament, I found myself next to a good player with a very big stack. I watched him closely, and saw that he made a point of identifying the weak players (it was the $3 rebuy), getting into pots with them, and then muscling them out of pots post-flop. (It really was an impressive display.) He did this often enough to the same couple of guys, I assumed that he HAD to be doing this with some pretty marginal hands.

Since I knew he didn't know who I was (with good reason - I'm nobody), and probably didn't even know that I knew who he was, I decided to take advantage of the situation by coming along with the fish and the shark. When the shark made his move, and the fish folded, I came over the top and took down a lovely pot: QED.

So I think that it is okay to play with the sharks, but not very often and only if you have a plan.