Strange tourney situation with 8 people sitting out

chessmaster · #1 03-12-2006, 06:43 PM

I played today a freeroll where all qualified people were preregistered by the site. so i ended at a table where 8 people were sitting out, and effectively played heads up against another guy where every pot was juiced up with the blinds. The bad things were i also was half an hour late, so he already collected about 4000 in blinds and i was almost always OOP as i sat right to him.
I minraised about top 60% of my hands (which gave him still way too many free blinds, but at least he didnt call/reraise me too much), and tried to steal some pots when there was a flop, but it didnt work out too well.
I ended committing my stack with my overpair against a flush draw which hit and i was out, which felt quite silly.
It seems to me he can be very agressive in this situation (which he actually wasnt) since i always lose not only my stack but also all the dead money around when i bust.
I felt completely clueless in this situation, so any advice is appreciated.

gmac · #2 03-12-2006, 06:47 PM

That's always a problem when people have qualified already and just sit there disconnected in these freerolls. When I'm in that situation and it's just a couple of people at the table, we agree to share the blinds taking it in turn to raise and take them each hand. Then once the discons appear back we play normal poker again. Failing a mutual agreement to share the blinds there's not much you can do but try to survive and steal some of the blinds when possible, making him pay when you hit big!

chessmaster · #3 03-12-2006, 06:52 PM

I tried to convince him sharing the blinds by exactly raising every second hand for a while, but he still called.
Do you make an agreement over chat (is this allowed and not considered as collusion?).
Wouldnt he be silly to make such an agreement since he has the better tableposition and can bust me?

schwah · #4 03-12-2006, 06:53 PM

you have a ton of overlay with all the dead blinds so i would think that you should not gamble with him unless you have way the best of it

of course if you can knock him out and your table fills with another sitting out player........... hmm

TwistedEcho · #5 03-12-2006, 06:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
When I'm in that situation and it's just a couple of people at the table, we agree to share the blinds taking it in turn to raise and take them each hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is collusion and against the rules.

mlagoo · #6 03-12-2006, 06:54 PM

it would be collusion if you made an agreement.

TwistedEcho · #7 03-12-2006, 06:57 PM

yeah i assumed a verbal agreement, just raising and letting them raise the next two hands is ok, in the same vein as checking it down with an allin is fine, but saying 'lets check it down to bust him' is not

gmac · #8 03-12-2006, 07:12 PM

When we did it, it was where there were 2 daily freeroll qualifiers to a weekly final, where the first 27 qualified... but points could be earned on an overall leaderboard by just finishing in a reasonable position in the tourney, so everyone, every day, the same people would register and leave their computer, hoping to get points. It was very frustrating with hundreds of discons across the field, sometimes taking up entire tables... and while it can be seen as collusion it was largely someone saying "share?" in a chat box with no one replying, rather just going ahead and doing what had to be done sort of thing, for what it's worth.

chessmaster · #9 03-12-2006, 07:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
you have a ton of overlay with all the dead blinds so i would think that you should not gamble with him unless you have way the best of it

[/ QUOTE ]
The problem is how to avoid gambling with him?
If i always back off when he raises me he can steal from me like he wishes. And i wont have the nuts/ a very strong hand too often.
Also how do you play here preflop?