When you get better do you bust out more?

Apart from the odd THF game, ive not been playing too much online in the last 4 weeks or so

Ive still been playing in the regular poker tournament down a pub near me. Its getting very popular now with 80 players there on monday

ive been there 6 times. Final table 4 times, missing out on it a few weeks ago and this monday.

Last week i finished 5th and i thought i was gonna finish better...til some guy called my all in with Q8 offsuit pre flop. However, most times at the final table i found that i was low on chips and was just fighting to survive.

This week i was quite low on chips entering the last two tables. It came round to me on the big blind and i only had enough for the blind+1more blind. However i got a good hand and picked up some chips and then raised agressively on the next hand. 2 hands after the blind and im sitting much better in chip count.

Im on the button and get dealt . Everyone folds except the big blind who checks. Flop comes . Wanting to have a chance of finishing high in the winners list i go all in. He calls and shows trip 9s

My flush didnt come and i was out.

However, at the time and still looking back im very pleased with me doing that. My problem used to be that i was too tight and im starting to get involved with more hands and im not just surviving.

Do you agree with this attitude? Im not talking about going crazy at the start of a multi table tournament but if your in say the last 15-20 players should you always take a little bit more risk so that you can enter the final table with a huge stack. This ideology will clearly put you out on occasions however if it gets you to the final table 1st, 2nd or 3rd in chips at least every 1 in 4 times, isnt it worth it? I believe it is


Part 2 : Seperate question relating to the same night

On the same night i was placed one place of a maniac. He was at my table last week. Nice enough guy but some of his calls and raises can only be labelled as crazy.

The game has 1 rebuy which just about everyone takes. He lost his first batch of chips by raising and raising in one specfic hand

The board came 10QK. Turn 9..river x
The guy behind me had raised him all in - the maniac called showing Ace rag ie nothing. The guy behind me showed AJ - he had flopped the straight.

This illustrates how crazy he is...he went all in with Ace high...even after he missed the very small chance of hitting a Q and making the straight he still called a large raise at the end and got put out.

However, like any other maniacs. Due to the number of hands hes seen some good hands. He went all in with pocket 3s and hit quads the other night

The problem i currently have is even when im 99% sure i have the best hand, i find it hard to compete against these kinda guys. Dont get me wrong, i know when i approach the final table there will be a lot less of these kind of players, however it doesnt stop them hurting your chip count in the beginning.


Heres an example to illustrate what i mean

Im the big blind. The maniac puts in a small raise....which he has done with pretty much every combination of cards possible. Another semi-loose player calls, the small blind folds and i just call the small raise with

Flop comes with a king and two small cards - no obvious straight or flush.

The blinds are at 50-100 so i put in a raise of 300. Im hoping the maniac just calls - im trying to milk him for everything hes got. He doesnt just call. He calls and then reraises another 800 chips. Bear in mind, after i called the big blind i had about 1800 chips...about 2nd in chips at the table.

The 2nd player calls the raise right away.

Now, after raising 300 ive got another 800 to call. Its also at the flop so its safe to say ill be all in with this level of raising and another two cards to come.

Not wanting to go against two players i fold. They keep raising each other til the crazy guy next to me is all in.

At this point the king is still the highest card. He flips over two small cards...he had the smallest pair at the flop. The other guy picks up the mammoth pot with K4.

Im sitting scratching my head wondering if these guys are selling their houses because theyre losing so much at poker

I dont want to analyse their play...theres crazy players everywhere.

Firstly, may i say i dont regret my fold. It isnt worth risking calling raises like that at the start of a tournament.

What im interested is how do you guys deal with maniacs? Do you try and not get involved in hands theyre in? Do you just call hands you sometimes would raise with?

What ive seen with players like that is that they dont raise correctly. They will happily raise 700 chips with a pair when the blinds are at 25/50. At that kind of level though you rarely have the odds to call so what do you do.

One on one i reckon i could beat guys like this heads up all the time and ive nearly always finished higher than these guys however i do get frustrated being at the table with these type of guys and having to fold ok hands due to them going all in with middle pair or whatever

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The easiest way for me to deal with maniacs is to wait. They will eventually hang themselves. In my "Gotta love maniacs" post, that is exactly what I did. When maniacs get a large stack they believe they are invinceable and will start bullying. If you don't have a hand, don't try to play against them. Or you can set them up. Put in small bets with the intention of folding if/when they re-raise. Do this a couple of times and when you do get a hand and they try re-raising you go over the top.

When the blinds are low is the best time to start setting people up. You won't waste a lot of money and they get the feeling you're weak. I don't play a lot of hands. In that earlier post I played 32 of 121 hands (26%). I won 26 pots without a showdown and 4 of 5 in showdowns. The main thing is, play your game not theirs and be patient. The cream always rises to the top. Well sometimes you do get sour cream.

"Put in small bets with the intention of folding if/when they re-raise. Do this a couple of times and when you do get a hand and they try re-raising you go over the top."

Thats where i have a problem though. Ive got no problems when i dont have a hand. Its when i do. In the example above i had the best hand, but going over the top with all my chips with what is after all only one pair is crazy. Even maniacs hit hands sometimes so why should i risk it

Maybe i should have explained myself better I have no problem tightening up etc in most hands. Its when you do hit a good hand (not a made one) and they reraise you....they could have trips or middle pair. Even though i think ive got the best hand, i dont like calling all in or close to all in raises with just one pair....especially so early in the tournament.

do you find yourself folding ok hands to loose players when they raise a substancial amount?

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To answer your first part, I am just the opposite...the final table or two...I am very tight, I play only ball buster hands, AA, KK, QQ, AK and the like...but I steal much more...I am constantly look for an opportunity to steal, many players in early or mid position will raise the BB 2 or 3 x's when the BB's are high, if I feel he is trying to do that I will come over top of him strong...in most cases they fold...if he really has them, I lose...I find the last two tables are rarely laid out hand...the battle is mostly pre-flop, with the flop rarely happening...so I make it a pre-flop battle. I rarely play early or mid position and will even fold good cards there, because I don't even want to limp....limping or raising someone else will come over top of you, I will keep it to a late position game...now in a late position game I don't need the cards, I just need to know my opponents. If I am SB at an un-bet board the BB is going to see normally +3x's BB from me, never less than 2 x's, I will not call him to see the flop, I will fold first, calling the 1/2 bet is showing weakness. Now you might say, why not see the flop, you might hit...I feel that in most cases I am going to lose just calling the 1/2 bet...I showed my weakness and a good player will pick up on that and make it nearly impossible for me to win...I would rather set a better table image and that is when I bet you better run, I don't need the cards, I just have to do it selectivly and with power.

On the second part, I would only call the maniac, raising is not going to do any good..even with an unbeatable hand....I want to set a trap for him...he will see my raise at the turn or the river.

when the blinds are doubling every 15 or 20 minutes you simply cant wait for hands like that in my opinion if your low on chips. The blinds will start diminishing your chip count. Which is why i think you need to be be less reserved when you do get a chance to double up.

(im still talking about when you reach the final part of the tournament and your low on chips - im not talking about tournament play in general. Obviously if you have a big chip stack you can pick and choose the hands better)

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Sorry Fonz...forgot about the low stack part!...lol

You explained it well enough. I was just giving you my general process.

You really answered your own question by saying "Even maniacs hit hands so why should I risk it". If you think it's a risk fold and count yourself lucky. I fold good hands all the time for that reason. I also have lost opportunities when I do that to bust out the aggressor but I still feel confident in my ability to beat them in a later hand. Just the other day I had K J and came in with 4x BB ($200). Got an immediate re-raise to $600 and then that got re-raised all-in to $1800. I had $2400 total but folded. The first re-raise went all-in with his last $1200. Both of these guys had been pretty wild and I really couldn't put them on any hands. Well raiser #1 had Ah 4h and the #2 had As 9s. The flop came K K J. I'd have busted them both and had a great stack at that moment. I called myself a couple of names and kept playing. I won that game.

Lately I've been keeping an eye on my stack compared to the BB. In your K J case, if I'm correct, after the 300 raise you had 1500 left in your stack. That's 15x the BB. So in my opinion you were still in good shape folding. In most cases, if you have to ask youself should I risk it, 90% of the time the answer is no.

Today alone I have folded 2 AKs, an 3rd AK - with top pair plus a top flush draw against an all-in (board was JJKx)- that one was really painful, QQ, TT, and god knows how many solid draws. I play my little SNGs to both win AND survive. And I've gotten alot better at letting good hands go when crazies get involved, especially early. As Cay said, let them kill each other out. And I prefer to be the raiser, not the raisee. Unless I have QQ,KK or AA preflop, I almost never call raises higher than 3xBB. And generally if I do call a monster raise, I'll go over the top. It has been working for me. Avoiding the morons and raise wars are key imho.

to answer ur second part.... i was playin with a guy who was like this, i raised preflop 4 times the bb with big slick, another guy reraises, he calls, i flop the ace high straight, and i check the reraiser bets 2 times the minimum, so i put him on trips and wanting some action, the crazy calls, so i raise enough to put them both in( im chip leader), they both call. one guys got trip jacks, other guy has 82s.......???? catches runner runner for his flush and triples up....

its been about an hour and a half now, down to 5 left, hes been raising with bs hands the whole night and no1s callin, im just waiting my time and killin him when i get hands. so im in 2nd, not to far behind him, he raises big, i go all in with AQs knowing he has a garbage hand and most any player would fold, cuz the call kills their chip stack...he calls with Q2 offffffff....whats the flop but 22Q....unbelievable....

so fonz to answer ur question for this part... just play very tight against them and kill them when u get ur chance...but they are gunna get lucky every once in a while..

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