jmbreslin

So you're playing a single table SnG and you realize early on that you're playing against a table of limpers. The general philosophy seems to be to try to see the flop often in the hopes of a good hit. There are usually 4-6 players limping in to see the flop, and you notice that your standard 3BB raises aren't being respected. Your opponents seem just as likely to call for 60-90 chips as they are to limp for 20/30 chips, and players rarely if ever limp fold to PF raises. This situation can be problematic because of the greater likelihood that one of your opponents will hit a lucky flop and

Right there is a big part of your problem: you're playing poker with money you can't really afford to lose. That will definitely affect your mindset at the (virtual) tables. Judging by your first post it also sounds like you're getting impatient ("...want to build my bankroll up quicker by playing cash games"). Impatience and no income is a deadly combination!

Let me preface this by saying that I don't play cash games, I only play tourney style. Way too passive. You can't just go along for the ride in this kind of situation. Raise the turn to find out where you stand. Not much you could do about this, except perhaps check the turn and see what happens. It sounds like you're playing against a lot of passive calling stations who like to let you do the betting. If that's the case, take them out of their comfort zone - give them the opportunity to lead and see what happens. This kind of opponent tends to make smaller bets out of fear, so it will

Did you get to see any of these hands, or have you and the other guy always folded to his aggression?If he's been doing this a lot he probably has a pretty wide range, especially if you guys have been letting him have the pots. Under these circumstances 99 is a pretty good hand to stand up to him.

As many professional poker authors have pointed out, cash games require a completely different mindset than tournaments. It could be that you're just not able to switch to the cash game mindset. This may not be the practical advice you're looking for but don't underestimate the difference between cash games and tournament-style NL holdem.

That hand you posted is a really good example of why you're having this problem. What's up with the UTG raise with J7? Were you trying to steal the blinds OOP? Toss it and wait for a better opportunity.The push on the river was also terrible, as you are well aware.Sounds like mental fatigue to me. If you don't have the stamina to go deep in big tourneys, I'd suggest pulling back and playing in the smaller tourneys like the 45's or 90's and work your way back up to the larger tourneys. There's no point playing the bigger ones if your brain falls asleep on you. Either that or try to think

I don't like that call on the flop, I think you either have to raise or throw it away. The other thing to note is that you're going up against the guy who has twice as many chips as the next highest chip total at the table.

I know this isn't what you were asking about, but I don't like the PF call with 87s one bit.

This is also really important. If the table is full of calling stations who will call your PF raise, you're just going to be building the pot for one of the lucky bastards when they hit their flop by raising with the weaker hands. But if they like to see the flop cheaply and tend to limp-fold to decent raises, then go ahead and lower your PF raising range.

Sorry, accidental double-post.

Dump it. You tested the waters with a decent-sized lead bet on the flop, and he came back with a decent-sized reraise. Give him benefit of the doubt and move on. If you fold now you still have about 1300 chips and the blinds are still low. Your only other option is to push back at him - do you really want to do that in this situation?

With no reads I'd give him credit for AQ or KQ based on him calling your decent sized UTG raise PF.

This is one of those situations where your play depends a great deal on your read - what kind of PF raising action have you seen from this villain previously?I thought the 501 raise looked very odd at first too, but he probably meant to enter a raise of 500 manually on the kaypad and accidentally hit the "1" instead of the second "0". Either that or he's just strange.

It's just not worth messing around and trying to get fancy-shmancy with hands like this. Raise with the bullets like you're supposed to and if villain folds, move on. Much better than trapping and getting nailed later in the hand. And if you're still not going to raise PF, at least lead the flop.

The AQ with the garbage flop is actually a good example of why the 5BB strategy Daniel mentions in the book can be problematic. At the lower levels, opponents will call big raises with much worse cards than they should. This is great if you're building the pot with a dominant hand, or if the flop hits you hard. But it's not so good when the flop misses you because you'll have to make a much bigger continuation bet to steal the pot.

If Guy 2 is really going to play that tight and predictable, then you can basically approach this as a headsup match against Guy 1. It sounds like you're letting Guy 1 bully you around with the chip advantage. I think you have 2 options here:1) tighten up considerably by folding mediocre holdings and hit him hard with strong hands; or2) fight fire with fire and make a big raise or push with any hand that is better than even money against a random hand (especially if Guy 2 has already folded ahead of you).Bottom line, you need to stop leaking chips by making small raises and allowing Guy 1 to

Depends on how perceptive your opposition is. In low buyins I think you can easily get away with a minraise in this situation without giving away any information...provided this isn't the only time you minraise.

I'm with copernicus here, I don't mind the minraise. It kind of depends on what buy-in this is, but in the lower buy-ins minbets and minraises are far more often signs of weakness than strength. Players rarely fold to minbets and minraises if they have something, which means you can build the pot a bit without scaring anyone off. I think a larger raise in this situation, given the texture of that flop (no paint, no flush draw), runs the risk of scaring off a calling station opponent. This is a perfect situation to trap a couple of opponents who are playing overcards, a straight draw, or ha

As a beginner player I find it absolutely necessary to focus on one table at a time because I inevitably run into situations where I have a key decision to make at more than one table at the same time, and I can't devote the attention to each decision that each requires. I once accidentally folded a flopped straight when I was in the middle of a decision at one table and the other table popped up for my turn. I quickly looked at my cards, which were 42o, and folded to a bet thinking it was PF. As I hit the fold button I glanced up and saw the community cards: 356 rainbow. As it turns out I

Aha, the mystery is solved...so no single table SnG's for less than $3 on Stars? That's a tad annoying.

I say just push. The pot is almost 6500 chips at that point, and taking that pot from him will give you a nice chip lead at the table. I'd rather increase my chances of taking the pot right there than trying to extract more value and running the risk that he might complete his flush draw on the river (if that is indeed what he is chasing).

This is a bit off topic but I noticed you said in your original post that you started playing the $3.40's lately. Were you playing the lower buy-ins before? I logged on to Stars for the first time last night at about 7:45pm eastern and I couldn't seem to find any SnG's lower than $3. Do they not start until later at night, or was I just not looking in the right place?

I did that and all I saw were a few $3 games. Are you telling me that the cheaper ones don't appear until 2am?I'll look again tonight when I'm home.

Quick question: I just logged on to Stars for the first time and I couldn't seem to find any NL Holdem SnG's for less than $3. I've heard people talk about playing the $2's and $1's, so where are they? Do they just not come up very often?

It was probably a safe move with that flop but I don't like fooling around with paired boards. Been burned too many times. I like the bet on the turn but with the 2nd Q on the river I'd just check through and go to showdown.Hand 2 is a bad situation. I'm assuming you're on the bubble, and you (the big stack) are going head-2-head against the 2nd big stack. On the turn, if you check and he bets will you call? If so, might as well lead. He's probably playing a weak flush draw here - most players in that situation (4 handed, on the button, folded to him) would probably have raised with any