[VinnyTheFish]

[ QUOTE ]
Aside from that, there are times when if the guy to your left is playing correctly, you will get free chips no matter what he has. You should use those times liberally, because they are literally the difference between winning and losing very very often. Of course, if he's a donk, he might eventually call with KJo for 2/3 of his stack; like I said, know the tendencies.

In general, though, if you're 4'th with 18 to go, stacks are deep (>15 BB average or so) and you lose the seat, something went very wrong.

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Agreed - I stay low, play my EV+ hands my EV+ situation. The every popular blind steal that will not cripple me. I attack the small stacks (that will not cripple me).

As for attacking the large stack ... that always seems to hurt me. Maybe because I have lacked the confidence to attack him properly.

For example, BB is chip leader and I am 16th, (18 left, 15 paid). I have ATo on the button. Assuming I can coast for a while 16th and I am not stack < 10 x BB - I fold 8 out of 10 times here. The other 2 times, I'd raise 2.5 and 3.5 times the BB. Pushing here, IMO, is out of the question. Others love to push here.

One thing I have taken to heart - after the 1st break until bubble time - I will calculate the mean chips needed to be a qualifier.

i.e. 1000 Entries, 100 get in. No-rebuy, everyone starts with T1500. total chips = 1,500,000. Mean chip count when 100 are left = 15,000. Now, you and both know that a chip leader or a few more are going to have the majority of the chips.

Therefore, when I hit a certain count, say 30K, I will cruise, and really just watch people drop. Seeing less than 10% of any flops.

Even better, Chip leader and #2 in chips now have 200,000 of that 1.5 million. I keep an eye on them. Are they sitting out? Yes? GREAT! Now you have 1,300,000 chips for 98 people. Brings your mean down to ~13,300. You can sit pretty at 20K, even 17K

Those chips are dead. Are they attacking? Ok, stay at that 25-30K goal, 15K+ is good, but under 10K, we may need to attack a bit and find our EV+ plays.


If you can sit for two hours and make money by not working ... you would do so right!?

Let me put it this way. You and Donk1 have 7,000 in chips. You are in 16th and 17th place out of 17 left. 16 get paid. Blinds are 1000 & 2000 (no ante to keep it easy).

1) You look at position? Who has to act first - assuming you both fold out, no one else leaves the tourn ... who would be standing?

2) You need to Push EV+ hands until you have enough chips to let someone else be the ginny pig.

3) Do not challenge the larger stack. Whoa - YES - I said it. Here's my thinking -- I have 7K, Seat 1 has 100K - he can lost that 7K and than another 14K to me and still go to bed gaining a seat. He will call you with anything from K2o to 22, to 56s!? Yes! On the other hand, Seat K, has 21 in chips, taking 7K from him puts him into defensive mode. He will not call unless he has those top few EV+ hands, you know um, AA, KK, etc.

But, I have found that having a chip goal in the above the mean keeps me quiet and I avoid unneeded gambles.

Ego is out the window!!!