What to do with non-stop bad cards?

[PokerFunKid]

Hey guys i am playing the $11 - 12k$ GTD day 1(e) and i keep getting bad cards. The tournament has been running for 44 minutes and my best hand was pocket 6 so far. Then second best hand was K3. What should you do in these situations? Keep patience and blind ur stack down or change ur hand range? Starting stack was 5k and i already got outblinded to 3,488. Limped some and tried to steal the blinds with some, but they all re-raised and i had to give up already. Hard to play in these situations. Any tips are welcome for these situations.

Mat

 

[PapaC]

Mat I have played in some and up to the first break I would not get more than 2/3 hands and small pots at that. Then it seemed to pick up after the add on. It goes either way with me. Run good early or run good late. But either way, you have to wait it out. It really gets me when the hands I fold come to the board and the one's I call with don't. So hope things change for you.

 

[PokerFunKid]

Thats exactly what happend to me. So i changed my hand range and then i lost all my chips lol. I haven't had my hands so extremely bad since i play poker. But maybe a tip for you it works for me when i fold a hand and then the flop would have been amazing for me or at least good: Lets say you are looking at king jack suited and you get 3-bet. You fold and someone else calls. You flop a royal flush. Your opponent has aces and flopped trips aces. You would have had the best 5 cards. But the preflop fold was good. You didn't do something wrong. I always think: if i called there maybe would be 3 others cards.

 

[knileh]

How to play through cold cards

Hey guys, how do you play through cold cards being dealt to you in a tournament?

I typically try to steal blinds once the tournament gets into its later phases; what about you?

 

[JPoling]

My best suggestion is this. Play tight at start cause blinds are so relatively small you can afford to play tight and really not much to gain playing loose. Also, take notice of postions, effective stack sizes, and players play style. Next, now once blinds start getting higher now we loosen up our range cause now is worth buying blinds. Now with blinds higher dont be afraid to slowplay pending on position and effective stack size with all of these. It sucks when we get dealt crappy cards but we have to make best of it. It takes some work to figure it out. Also, you dont wanna play too consistent or people will catch on. I love it because I usually build tight image when really im not. Then in later rounds I have easily bought pots early with crap cards like 92o 83o. Which obviously sounds like horrible play. But if I am to the right of some NIT's real easy and cause tight image I build and do it at right time amd right position can easily keep afloat. Yet dont risk too much doing this all the time. Even if you do it with marginal hands, dont be afraid just to let it go to a re-raise. I hope this helps I tried explaining it best I could. Takes experience trying to implement it imto your game to understand how it works.

 

[Mordecoke]

First off patience is key. It shows the rest of the table that you only wait for monster hands. Which makes you seem like a strong player. However, this also makes you look like a weak player because you said you are forced to fold when you actually do try making a move.
Try this...
Try raising in position when it is folded to you. It doesn't matter what hand you have, and always be prepared to bet the flop.
Most of the time you will accumulate chips this way.
Also if it is folded to you and the person to your left is the dealer, you can try stealing the pot in this position as well. Try raising a little more than a min raise.
I'm not saying do this all the time, only when you are card dead. Sometimes you just got to act like you have aces or something. It pays off trust.

 

[floweryhead]

In one of the Harrington on hold'em volumes it gives good advice on stack/blind ratio and playable hands. It may be worth you giving that a read. However, unfortunately, it's been a while since I read them and so I can't remember which volume covers it

 

[floweryhead]

I play a lot of tournaments and this situation is common. The only advice I can give you is to try and play your position and steal from tight passives. Once your stack reaches a certain low correct strategy is to shove with anything so you need to identify players you can steal blinds from so that the cold card problem is less of a problem. Hope this is of some use to you

 

[ammytyagi]

Preflop decisions are not entirely based on cards only. Ofcourse it is most important factor but position and table dynamics should also be considered.

 

[PokerFunKid]

Thanks guys, good tips.

 

[BigredMike]

Bad cards are a part of poker and have to be managed. odds are that you will have as many good hands as bad, so be ready a hot streak may be around the corner. Really their are few bad hold cards, its the flop that will render many hands bad. If you have stayed in cheaply and flop the unexpected trips with your crap hands, you can turn that frown upside down. If you cant stay in cheapy, then just wait it out or bluff your pants off.

 

[RedCatPoker]

I believe that bad cards sometimes can even help you to stay in the tourney longer and win more money. For instance, in a recent tournament I've managed to enter the final table with the smallest stack, 10 times in a row there were bad cards and i folded. During that time, 4 people with bigger stacks went off the tournament. So bad cards are sometimes good than AA or KK

 

[guutox]

Without cards difficult play....sometimes i cant believe that good cards simply desappear from my game... anyway poker is mental game need patience....

 

[SwiftHax]

It doesn't matter what stack you started with, how much chips you won or how much chips you lost. All that matters is how many blinds does your stack consist of, it sure isn't easy to ignore the rest, but you have to try.

The only reason you should change your hand ranges is because of the table dynamics. How silly would it be to loosen your ranges because you're card dead? If I'm getting bored of continuously folding, I just fire up another MTT/SNG or a Heads Up SNG.

 

[zarzar78]

I have got this in a the sunday storm and lost all my chips after 2.5 hours.
But this will happen may be 1/500 or 1/1000 tournaments.

In this cases patience is the key and the only solution, agressive play with bed cards and you will be busted, wait and when you will got nice cards try to double up...

 

[TheFreakShow_NY]

DO NOT WIDEN YOUR HAND RANGE! Hopefully from your observation you have picked up valuable information to use on certain players. Obviously your handcuffed by your stack, but unless its a turbo you should have plenty of time to work through it and wake up with some hands. The absolute worst thing you can do in these situations is force something to happen. You will bust out early and leave kicking yourself knowing you could have played much better if you were patient.

 

[joe777]

If the button is a bully and try to steal the blind from you while you were holding small pocket pair for example 44 you can do counter steal by a 3bet shove.Small pair like pocket 44 really do well against any Ax in showdown.During the middle phase lots of player tend to steal more often.

 

[Martinez]

Since down loading Full Tilt again, I find myself often in exactly the same situation almost every time I play.
Only thing you can do in such situations is wait for good cards. By not playing every other hand, when it comes to me in the BB many players that otherwise bet rashly tend to limp which gives you a free flop which can turn out good for you.
Just be patient eventually the cards will come.

 

[trolaAa]

Well it depends on your opponents on the table whatch them how they play and try to steal with your bad hands..because u cant play only best hands not the best advice but be sure if you play very tight soon u will be out .
Good luck

 

[Salvete777]

It's very hard and interesting question in my oppinion. I had situation like this few times and I can say that you have 2 ways how to act.
1. Keep folding them, don't try to get gutshot draws, just keep playing your style until your badcard strike ends, BUT if you playing like this, you could get trouble with low stack.
2. Play aggressive and bluff - risk and hope that your opponents didn't got nuts.

 

[JPoling]

I just wanna come back and touch back on this a little bit. I see everyone saying just sit and wait for good hands. We can not do this in poker. We have to attempt to steal pots with marginal/bad hands occasionally. Yet, also be prepared to fold if someone re-raise your bet pre-flop, or if they re-raise a cbet you put in. If they do call your cbet slow down, or hopefully the cbet was a semi-bluff. If you sit there and just wait for the best hand your stack will be gone from blinds and antes. Once again, DONT GET SLOPPY, just widen your range for stealing. Tight at start, looser later on. Don't even attempt stealing early on it is not worth it.

 

[pokrjoker]

I just wanna come back and touch back on this a little bit. I see everyone saying just sit and wait for good hands. We can not do this in poker. We have to attempt to steal pots with marginal/bad hands occasionally. Yet, also be prepared to fold if someone re-raise your bet pre-flop, or if they re-raise a cbet you put in. If they do call your cbet slow down, or hopefully the cbet was a semi-bluff. If you sit there and just wait for the best hand your stack will be gone from blinds and antes. Once again, DONT GET SLOPPY, just widen your range for stealing. Tight at start, looser later on. Don't even attempt stealing early on it is not worth it.

thank god someone said it..it cant just sit and wait.. in the early stages see lots of flops if they are cheap. use your position to steal. truthfully the cards only play about a 25% role in my game. i more often than not trying to exploit tight players. stealing from lag players and opening un opened pots regardless of my holdings..if you are only paying attention to your cards then you need to start doing alittle reading there are lots of articles that will open your mind to the different levels of poker...gl at the tables

 

[PokerFunKid]

I just wanna come back and touch back on this a little bit. I see everyone saying just sit and wait for good hands. We can not do this in poker. We have to attempt to steal pots with marginal/bad hands occasionally. Yet, also be prepared to fold if someone re-raise your bet pre-flop, or if they re-raise a cbet you put in. If they do call your cbet slow down, or hopefully the cbet was a semi-bluff. If you sit there and just wait for the best hand your stack will be gone from blinds and antes. Once again, DONT GET SLOPPY, just widen your range for stealing. Tight at start, looser later on. Don't even attempt stealing early on it is not worth it.

Thats what i did in that situation and then i missed the flop went aggresive again and got re-raised. Then i was forced to fold and i was in even more trouble. Its worth the shot, but if you miss your stack will get even lower. Must add if you want to win a tournament you gotta take some risk.

 

[Rain92]

Hey actually the cards are not as bad as you think. Since as you know anything can happen in poker many times I play hands like J5, K3 then the flop comes with a trips for me. This hands are good and open up your chances of winning if you also open up your starting ranges.

 

[horizon12]

You can do nothing, only waiting phase in MTT when started push/fold, already there is, and you can double your stack...