gambling at certain stages

[rosco]

Ok wanted a few opinions here and if they follow this, maybe is part thier basic strategy, well its something that as come up in the last few tournaments I have played. It happens midway through tournaments and I am sat with average stack, when there is an all in and only me left to act and it will costs between 30-50% of my stack. oh and your prity sure it 50/50. I prefer to be the aggressor but this is purely calling. the two examples are; 1) apat 125/200 players left an early position who I have taken a number of chips off previous and is loose. I have 10/10 in the bb. I was sure this was 50/50 and put on a big ace. I thought about it at the time and realised I really need to gamble at some stage to get anwhere in this tournament. it was for 40% of my stack. I called and my 10s held up against his ak. I then had a stack to bully the table and to gain a large stack. 2) the second is a classic move by a relatively short stack poker player. 9 handed I have about 16k average is 12k. 5 limpers bb goes all in for 5k. I am sat with pocket 7s. everyone else folds. I know this player and he is a good player and is making a move to virtually double his stack. again 50/50. i call and he turns over qk. and my 7s hold up and I increase my stack. I then play like a donk and loose it all. but other thoughts on this, I know tight players would fold, but its about gamling at mid stages.

[SteveO]

Re: gambling at certain stages The conundrum with pairs is are you up against overcards or overpairs. The lower the pair the less likely you are to be in good shape, and that's all there is to it really.

[stooo V2]

Re: gambling at certain stages are you asking on telling us rosco? I'd be calling like you also (also most prob donking off the stack like u to haha! :D). I remember i posted a similar topic on here when i first joined and GaF said it comes down to whether you want to just cash or kick on and win the thing. Most of the time i wanna win.

[rosco]

Re: gambling at certain stages was asking stooo, and just trying to get peoples opinions, but as gaf puts it, whether you want to win it or get to the money

[Valiant23]

Re: gambling at certain stages I play every tournament with the win in mind, but I tell myself there are certain 'checkpoints' you need to reach before you can start to realistically think about the win. I've argued with Gaf about this, but its been my inability to explain myself properly more than a different outlook, because we will both take similar chances if it puts us in a good position. These 'checkpoints' may start off with surviving the first hour, doubling up my starting stack by the 2nd level, that kind of thing, because its very rare that you get a monster hand that pays off in the first level or two to the extent that you are chip leader from start to finish. As I said in the Sick Dilemma thread, sometimes I will make my decision on what chips I think I'd need to reach a certain stage, even if it meant bubbling. Sometimes I will make my decision based on a read of a player's range. Other times (especially live) I will make my decision based on whether I feel I can afford to lose the race. It also depends on the strength of my hand. In some circumstances I'd be happy to commit more of my chips with JTsuited against a short stack than with a medium/small pocket pair. But basically unless you have a big stack that allows you to pick your spots, I think there comes a time that you have to make these kinds of calls. As I said before, thats why I'd fold in VoJ's position, but have no problem in calling in BtP's, regardless of the outcome.

[ubermonkey1]

Re: gambling at certain stages i played it pretty much the same ross:ok i think because it was a pretty good quality field you have to get into a few races along the way because chips aren't gonna be that easy to pick up cheap. maybe against a weak game you can outplay a lot of your opponents but in a 200 man(strong) field your gonna need some luck at the right times to do well ,really you need to pick up chips pretty constantly so i would/was doing the same;).

[ubermonkey1]

Re: gambling at certain stages

It also depends on the strength of my hand. In some circumstances I'd be happy to commit more of my chips with JTsuited against a short stack than with a medium/small pocket pair.

i agree with you there mate:ok i would much rather push with suited connectors(all the way down to 4 5 suited) rather than a rag/ k rag small pp because usually if you get a caller they will be quite strong(face cards/pp etc) and you have a good chance of being dominated. playing suited connectors usually gives you 2 live cards +straight/flush outs and unless your unlucky enough to get dominated by a small/mid pp your usually looking at worst a 1 in 3 shot, even vs aa.