How Would You Play This Table Draw?

[thecove 0]

Went to Reno this past weekend and played the side cash games that the Grand Sierra Resort was running at the WPT World Poker Challenge. Lots of action, they had every game at every limit. It was a little chaotic and sometimes very long trying to get on a table but once you did, the action was amazing. There was a lot of cash flying around, and at one point I heard that the hotel actually ran out of tournament chips becuase they were running so many satellites. The pros were everywhere, my buddy even played craps with T.J. Cloutier. I didn't play in the main event but was walking around waiting for some tables to open up for cash games as people busted out. Saw Daniel talking to Erick Lindgren during one of the levels and hand Erick a undisclosed amount of cash. LOLAnyways, as I was walking around the tournament area, I looked at one table draw that was brutal. How would you like to sit down in Seat #2 and have Hoyt Corkins sit down on your left and Mark Seif sit down to Hoyt's left. Ugh! So my friend and I had a little debate about how to handle this situation. The first idea was to push in first hand and get it over with. LOL.Seriously, he favored being hyper agressive, and raising most of the time to take plays away from them. He argued that since these pros likely don't know your style, you could afford to be aggressive with the levels low and the time long, taking advantage of the time the pros try to figure you out. He also said that once you did that and hopefully built a stack, you can tighten up as they try to catch up.My feeling is that you need to lay low and let those two knock each other around. You need to set a lot of traps for them to walk into but switch gears and open up your starting hand range the one time you have position on them during the orbit. Instead of taking down small pots with big raises, you should be looking to take down one or two big pots each level with traps or standard raises and rarely, if ever, bluffing.I said that it wouldnt take long for the pros to figure you out. I felt that the hyper agreessive style would be matched by Seif and playing too many pots out of position to those two was asking for the rail. My friend feels that playing tight would just invite those two pros to run all over you.So what do you guys think?

[jmbreslin 0]

Isn't it Daniel who says that the best way for an amateur player to compete with the pros is to push whenever possible to avoid getting outplayed postflop?

[ChrisRichey 1]

They're both pretty aggressive, so I would try and use that against them. I would definitely check/raise them more, or lead weak with strong hands (make it look like a probe bet) and hope they try to take you off of a weak hand. You're definitely going to need to tighten up more if they are playing loose, because you're going to need a pretty strong hand to compensate for the fact that you're playing two pros OOP.

[Sefaje 0]

I'd play it pretty normally. Two players at a table of 9 doesn't make a huge difference, and Mark Seif is a major donkey.

[NEtwowilldo 0]

Did you see him at the 2005 USPC?Talk about pissing away a chip lead.

[Zach6668 513]

I'd play it pretty normally. Two players at a table of 9 doesn't make a huge difference, and Mark Seif is a major donkey.

You should hear all of the higher limit AP players I know get excited when he sits in the 150/300 there.