Be careful what you say
I'm playing in a sit-n-go, not really paying attention much, just playing very tight. My chips are dwindling some, we're down to 6 players. The guy on my immediate left says in chat "I'll take a hand any time now".
What does that tell me? It tells me that he's just waiting for a hand, not really playing situations. He's the short stack with about 1,000 chips, I'm next with about 1,200. Next hand I'm the button, he's the small blind, the chip leader is the big blind with over 6,000 chips.
It's folded to me. I have a couple of mid sized unsuited cards. Since the big blind has such a large stack I figure he's likely to call a steal attempt from my short stack so normally I'm just folding here. But after that comment from the small blind I figure a steal is a sure thing to work against the small blind, so rather than having to worry about a call from either of them I only have to worry about that big stack on the big blind. So I try to steal. It doesn't work, the big blind calls, but I get lucky and flop a pair, get a call for the rest of my chips on the flop from overcards and double up.
I'd have never doubled up that hand if the short stack hadn't made his witty comment.
What does that tell me? It tells me that he's just waiting for a hand, not really playing situations. He's the short stack with about 1,000 chips, I'm next with about 1,200. Next hand I'm the button, he's the small blind, the chip leader is the big blind with over 6,000 chips.
It's folded to me. I have a couple of mid sized unsuited cards. Since the big blind has such a large stack I figure he's likely to call a steal attempt from my short stack so normally I'm just folding here. But after that comment from the small blind I figure a steal is a sure thing to work against the small blind, so rather than having to worry about a call from either of them I only have to worry about that big stack on the big blind. So I try to steal. It doesn't work, the big blind calls, but I get lucky and flop a pair, get a call for the rest of my chips on the flop from overcards and double up.
I'd have never doubled up that hand if the short stack hadn't made his witty comment.
Labels: when to raise
posted by Gary Carson at 12:15 PM
4 Comments:
You'd never have doubled up if you hadn't got lucky and flopped a pair is what I think you meant to say.
What were the blinds here?
I don't remember the blinds.
My preflop raise was about pot sized, my allin bet on the flop was about 80% of the pot. You can probably figure it out from that.
My point was that there's two kinds of stacks that are likely to call a steal -- the very short stack who feels desperate and the very big stack that thinks you might be desperate.
Without his comment I'm worried about both of them and aren't going to try to to steal. With his comment I realize I don't have to worry about him and the risk of getting called is much smaller to me, so I gave it a shot.
If he hadn't made the comment I'd never have had a chance to get lucky. His comment gave me an extra way to win by giving me at least some shot that a steal attempt would work.
I often feel like players shoot themselves by bemoaning the fact that they are carddead or unlucky. It just encourages your opponent to exploit your carddeadedness or bad luck streak.
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