Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Attacking the weak during late stages

I haven't done an analysis/strategy post in a while, so here is one and let me know what you think.

My recent chip building tournament strategy has been working pretty good lately. I've had good early success and pretty often have held the chip lead in early to mid stages of an mtt. I'm noticing that my current struggles are in the late mid stages, which I would describe as pre-bubble. Not quite the bubble period, but the portion right before it. Final 3rd table, or if 20 pay, in the 40s, etc...

The hands I'm getting burned on is when I'm being overly aggressive preflop. When I'm sensing weakness in position, with almost any 2, I've been unleashing my fury upon their limped biscuits. Often times I'm fighting weakness with weakness. Normally they fold, but sometimes they call. And lately, they've hit their flops. Perhaps I'm doing it too much, and should be more selective as to hands to do it with. One thing I know I shouldn't be doing but still do it is with Ace rag. I would much rather being doing it with a connected that a hand that I will most likely be dominated if called.

One hand I remember from the weekend, 30 left, and I'm somewhere 5-10th in chips. 2 limpers and I'm on the button with A3. I pop it to a big number (can't remember the exact number but it was more than 2xpot). 2nd limper calls, which tells me most likely holding is a small pp. Flop comes 245, jackpot! Limper bets out, I push, he calls. He had 66 and rivers a 3. Am I making the right reads? yes. Am I playing a good aggressive game? yes. Should I be playing big pots like this to continue building my stack? I dunno, discuss.

2 comments:

TechGuyTom said...

Maybe that was a bad example but you have no choice but to play big when you flop the nuts. Sadly your opponent rivered you but hey, your supposed to attack the weak during the late stages.

Gregory Damien said...

If you're the big stack you should be attacking everyone when you have a hand.

Don't let the mid sized stacks become a force when the steal twice every orbit. These guys are in survival mode. The small stacks are in "I need to double up mode".

Keep the mid stacks in line and the small stacks will play really scared.

Kick the shit out of a big stack once in a while and they'll revere you.

And make sure when you get a new player at your table you show him who's boss too.

And pray to the RNG gods your hands are good.