Hands to play when playing tight ?

What hands do you guys recommend playing preflop facing either regular ol' blinds or one raise when trying to play tight ? Whenever I'm short stack I always seem to wait for the golden hand and by the time I get it im dead broke and I end up drawing dead. I'm curious as to what hands you guys play when shortstacked and stuck in a tight position.

in tourny play, if your strategy is to play tight then stick to it. what you are talking about are hands that you wouldnt normally play, while waiting for your "golden hand".
however, you cant play extemely tight and you cant loosen up completly, but what you have to do to keep the other players at your table honest, is to push with sub-premium hands, such as mid suited connectors which are my favorite hands, or over mid hands, like k9 or jq.
you have to pick your spots with these hands and know when to get away, and to not commit to much to the pot with these types of hands, hope tha helps.

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IM KIND OF LIKE ROBIN HOOD, EXCEPT I TAKE FROM THE DONKS AND GIVE TO MY BANK ACCOUNT.

It all depends what you are playing (limit ring game, limit tourney, pot limit or no limit ring or no limit )

I get a sense that you are talking about NL tourneys so here goes -

It all depends what the blinds are in relation to your stack and how quickly they are rising, furthermore it depends on how the other players are playing (and the sizes of chips they are betting). It also depends how near you are to the money and what is your level of risk aversion.

If you have at least 10*BB chips AND you are not in some insane turbo where they are increasing every 3 minutes or anything then you can more or less play as normal BUT don't play many hands like 34s etc. because you don't have the chipstack to get the implied odds neccisary to make these hands worth playing. Also pot flop beware of chasing flushes etc. as you will generally just end up nearer and nearer deaths door.

Generally speaking you don't want to risk a few chips on a long shot as it will leave you in an increasly desperate situation. Some games you are in it will be obvious that players will call your all in with very little if they think there is a chance to knock you out. They will call with a hand like k9 on a flop of q104 rainbow from an allin (4*pot) etc. because it doesnt cost them chips. At other times in other tourneys they will fold.

Generally too many players try to double up when short staked. If possible get small pots cheaply and safely. If you have 500 chips and the blinds are 50/100 isnt it better to win a small pot of say 250 rather than risk a 50/50 to double up or be knocked out. two small pots and you have that total anyway.

If you are not risk adverse then you can play hands like aq in late position to maximise profit rather than worry about being knocked out with them so go all in if you think you will get a call and miniplay it if you think you wont - if you are more risk adverse then you do the reverse.

A lot depends on how near you are the money (and if the blinds are eatting you in a MTT you are probably quite near) - I think that winning your buy-in back is nothing to get excited about you should always be playing for final table etc BUT if you are in a situation where you can either take a risk now - pre bubble or wait a little bit (post bubble) then generally wait. Unless there is a decent amount of money for finishing in the money (a money added event or a rebuy generally) OR you have bankroll issues then don't consider folding or avoiding risking getting beaten on AA, KK or on a flop with 2 pair and the risk of someone catching a flush on the turn etc...

Anyway what to play if you are tight.....

1) play VERY little in early position. Depending on the level of tourney, the style of players you are against, and relative chip stacks etc anything done in early position could leave you with an all in or fold scenario. This can occasionally be exploited as a double bluff (if he is betting here he MUST be VERY strong hence we must fold etc..) but this will only work if they dont feel you are scared of being eated up by blinds or on tilt etc - and noone is likely to fold a premium to you if it is cheap for them to call.

This doesn't mean you cannot play anything in early position but you should beware of playing 1010 or lower PP and even AJ and a10s are dangerous hands ot play - you can justify playing other hands but only based on solid reads of betting tendancies and holdings. If you are less risk adverse then there are a few more hands you can play but not many.

Mid position -
If there has been a raise from a moderately tight player then hands like Aq are often best folded BUT the alternative may be all in. You have the advantage that being short stacked if you go all in you winn get to see ALL the cards so hands like A2s on a flop with 1 of your suit and a35 is the kind of hand that it would be tough to stay in against a big raiser but you have a decent chance of actually catching cards etc. You should beware of calling a raiser though as a general rule- Unless they are the kind of player who bet on strange hands in which case if you are not risk adverse you can reraise them all in etc and hope to double up 60% of the time.

Mid/late and late position - you can play more hands - if you can blind steal (ie you know how and the table is suitable and you have enough chips) then do so but not to excess - one wrong step and your out you have more options here and it all depends on what your stance is to risk. You dont want to see a flop on anything less than 88, a8 (or a2s), k9 etc. - and ABSOLUTELY NOT for 1/4 of your bankroll or more

Hands like QJ are trash and should generally be avoided by short stacks EXCEPT when you are blind stealling. It is always dangerous to try to steal blinds when you are in short stack so beware. Also with hands like 96s (my favorite blind steal hand) you are less likely to get dominated by a player who calls you than with qj as holdings like aj, aq, kq, kj are the kind of hand that would call you here

You should see probably no more than 20% of flops if you are short stack midway through a tourney and some would even say that 9-13% is where you want to be.

Jro34 talks about waiting for the golden hand - I see many players do this. The problem is that there are not many golden hands and you might not end up getting one and even if you do you could still lose with it. It is better to try to win small pots than wait for the perfect double up. Also AA under the gun is about the equivalent of JJ in the dealer spot IF you are at a fairly tight table that is quite defensive in charactor so the "golden hand" if there is such a thing is very much position determined.

I highly recommend picking up Harrington's 2 volume set on NL tourneys. Volume 2 spends about half the book talking about this.

Basically, the important ratio to consider is your stack compared to the size of the pot preflop.

Easy example: you have 2000 chips

10 man table with blinds at 100/200 25 antes.

pot pre-flop is 550. Your 'M' value is about 3.5. This is how many rounds around the table you can last if you just post and fold all antes and blinds without playing a hand.

This is not an ideal situation. Harrington breaks it down into 3 zones. At each one, you actually have to think about playing MORE aggressive as your room for moves keeps getting smaller. Going all in with 2000 chips to add 550 to your stack becomes more advisable. Even on marginal hands if you are the first into the pot. Either someone calls you and you win getting doubles up, everyone folds to you and you win an additional %25 of your stack, or you get called and lose (which you are very close to doing anyhow). He goes into great detail in the books and I highly suggest reading it if you are a tight player. It's helped my game immensly.

Remember this, the longer you wait to get the golden hand, the smaller your stack is to double up. You double up with 2500 chips, you have 5000 chips and are sitting pretty good. You wait until you have 1000 chips, you have only 2000 and still have to get ANOTHER "golden hand." I wont go into too much detail here. But email me if you want to talk more.

Bob

yesterday i finished 23rd in the 10+1mtt with 136 players left i was 134th 135 got paid so stage 1 pass the bubble then gamblejust after the bubble i was allowed to limp into a pot with 66 flop a 6 10 bang first double up so i have 8k now after that i made 2 all in position bets with medium hands and because i had only played 15%off pots i got away with it its something to remember
that gave me chips to play with a bit later i got aa and because i had stole some pots players thaught i was at it again and i trippled up my stealing paid of in a differant way lol
i went from 4k to 42k in about 20 mins i hope that teaches you something