[ElGod]

I always play my best poker (as i'm sure most peope do) with a medium to large stack in the mid and end stages of a tournament. however, I've recently been having big problems in building a large stack early in tournaments.

Recently i have been played several live games at our universitys poker society and have found it difficult accumulating chips against the players. the society consists mainly of about 30% good players, and some of these guys are realy good, then the rest really really bad, lots of basically beginners who constantly need to be prompted to post their blinds e.t.c. These players i find impossible to read and seem to never fold, EVER! they stick in pots with draws or simply if they have just an ace high even when there is never any reasons to justify their decisions. As such i have found myself in a lot of confusion and tightened up dramatically only playing medium to strong pairs and big aces or occasionally kq e.t.c whenver the time seemed right.

i have had little success in the last 10 or so tournaments mostly going out with a good hand such as AK where i've not had a big enough stack to defend my hand and make my opponent fold preflop, ofter losing to a mediocre hand (last night i lost AK to Kj which made a straight as i could only re-raise the initial raiser another 500 when the pot was already 3000). Either this or ive just got so short stacked and have had to push.

Anyone got any tips on playing against really weak players? an example of the type of player i'm referring to is one who limps in every pot, if you raise they call, if you went all in, they would also probably call (this really bugs me, they wil call the big blind for say $50, and they call a $500 raise? what? and they arn't slow playing aces or making another such play, if they had aces they would probanly move all in with a huge grin on their face!). after the flop they will bet $100 to a pot of $3000, i.e plays which are almost funny. Do you continue to make standard plays such as continuation bets e.t.c if you miss the flop and bluff against them? of just give up the pot if you don't have any hand as you know they will call you to the end with 9 high. Or is it a case of playing as many hands as cheaply as possible until you make a monster and reel them in (this is pretty impossible when the other 30% of players are very good though)?]

I'm not sure if i'm just looking too far into this and should just play my normal game. i seem to have drifted away from my initial topic title aswell. but any tips on playing againts really weak players aswell as building a big stack early on would be nice to hear

[nxtyear]

wow long post.
anyways i can't comment much on this, seeing as i am one of the sufferers in this same uni as ElGod, being part of the same society, and only doing marginally better than ElGod when it comes to weekly live tournaments

like he said, there's about 30% of the players who are really good.
and what i came to see is that of thosee 30%, there are several who ALWAYS seems to have a huge stack after 2-3 rounds of blind level (ie after 1 hour)

i wanna know myself how they do it to be honest...
but i'm guessing it boils down to the fact that they know when to fold better than us (and considering how big their stack is everytime, they probably don't ever go to showdown and lose. they'd probably fold if they knew they were beat.)... and probably know how to extract more chips from the weaker opponents when they have the better hand.

basically, you gotta improve your flop play, which is where it matters most i think.
and try to be a little bit looser than you are... seeing flops cheaply when there are many people in the hand and you have good position...

something like that,

my play is really bad these days as well so i don't really think i shoulda replied to the thread.

[AGreen]

Whenever I play with weaker players, like the ones you mentioned that call through with a high card, the only thing I can do is remember not to make any sort of bluff unless it's enough to put them really deep/all-in into the pot.

I dont know, most of the time it does seem like I get burned by a ridiculous call by these guys. It's nice gettin a monster on them but besides not bluffing/raising a lot more than normal with premiums, I still just play the same hands. With these guys it sucks for me but it seems like I gotta let my cards do the playing until it's just the small percentage of good players left.

[ElGod]

Hmmm, some good points. i guess playing more hands seems to definitely be the way forward. i guess i just need more practice against really bad players, i will have to check out the low buy ins at party poker beginners lounge, good practice!

Also.... Nxt, u have won £130, of which you spent £3 buying me a kebab. I've also £130 but spent none of it, so actually i'm winning, u better pull your socks up!!!

I think its back to hitting the books whilst watching josh arier on FTP to get some tips for me! Thanks for the hints though guys

[Arjonius]

When playing against complete newbies, I look for situations where I'm likely to have very good odds. That means playing tighter than usual and even laying down some hands I'd normally play where I think I'm a 55-45 or maybe even a 60-40 favorite. More often than not, it works out okay since I get my chips back along with plenty more on the hands where I'm an even bigger favorite.

[beriac]

I went to a friend of mine who's an excellent poker player with that exact same problem -- I tended not to do well against very weak, sometimes even inexperienced players and I wanted to know how to shore up my game.

As nxtyear mentioned, I think flop play is key here. The advice I was given was, to whatever extent possible, to build a big stack, see as many flops as you can (cheaply!). This usually means in the early rounds, when this strategy is most critical anyway.

Basically it means calling or raising more hands, seeing the flop, and playing from there. Good flush draws, outside straight draws, and trips, you bet hard. Middle/bottom pair you just fold then and there. Against inexperienced players, games are won after the flop, not before.

Once the blinds are higher, seeing the flop becomes more expensive but at this point many of the newbies are gone and hopefully you've got a nice stack of chips. Then revert back to the tight/aggressive game you've worked so hard on!

I tried his advice, and it worked like a charm for me.

[BSgutshot]

What I like to do is pick out a weak player that goes all in a lot, wait for a good hand and pick them off. I only like this stategy in a biger tourney because in smaller ones I usually try to out-play the other competitors. In the bigger tourneys you are also more likely to come up against a player that is very loose and will put all of his/her chips in with nothing. If you can catch one of them with a good starting hand like big slick or a high pocket pair, you can knock them off about 80% of the time.

Of course you are taking the risk of losing the tournament early on, but this move pays off more often than not.

[dylan236]

i agree with the last post... i always like to find that one weak player to beat. And have no idea what our talking about if your playing against people who never fold it's real easy to accumalate alot of chips. Be patient and once you hit some good cards exlode on them and u can have a huge stack in no time. Sometimes you just can't get any good playing cards or descent hands, an theres just nothing you can do here. Thats the way poker...you can't always get the nuts.

[TopTrotter]

Some real good points made here ... for a cash player, the weekie is no problem since all you basically have to do is make out your deposit slip and be carefull not to "tap on the glass" as they say or you'll scare the fish. They can't hurt you, even if they win - which they will do often enough to keep them there as a continual source of money for the better players in the game.

In the tourney however, these people can be dangerous cuz they can cripple you in a given tourney and THIS TOURNEY is the only thing that matters. And the weak player can hurt you in more than just the obvious way (getting lucky) - they can hurt you in a "stealth" or "indirect" way -- by losing their chips to OTHER STRONG PLAYERS at your table who then will use the power of that stack against YOU. Hence, when they are at your table, you simply MUST get your fair share of their chips. It is IMPERATIVE. I agreee with what AGREEN said before.... forget about running bluffs and semi-bluffs with this type. Also, in order to outplay these people off the flop, you need to ISOLATE them. This is KEY. You cannot change your game so much (to attack them) as to then make your self more beatable and vulnerable to the better players however either. So you need sufficient power and position to make a large enough raise to drive others out so that you are head up with the calling station. ISOLATION is key. For live play, here is what I do, and it works AMAZINGLY WELL.... watch pots where the weakie is involved and when the flop comes, DO NOT LOOK AT THE FLOP (even if you are in the hand). The cards are there, the will not move. Watch the weaker player. Watch their face as the flop comes. Very soon you will be able to discern whether the flop helped them or not. Very reliable. Also watch the way they handle their chips. No matter what, take good PLAYABLE hands and don't be affraid to play them.. in isolation against this one player.

Back to the original discussion on building big stacks.... I really don't think a MONSTER stack is needed. I don't know about the tourney in question here, but in other large MTTs there is really NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP between the size of your stack after 2-3 rounds and your likelyhood of appearing at the final table. However, there comes a point where it is absolutely necessary to have a usable stack otherwise you might as well not even be there. Don't get too loose trying to get involved in all sorts of pots early...... REMEMBER - YOUR CHIPS ARE YOUR POWER. IT IS BETTER TO MAKE ONE $500 BET THAN TO CALL FIVE $100 BETS.

In fact, I kind of like to have a medium-ish stack and fly under the radar for most of a large tourney. But I am not one of the "survivalists" who just wants to see how deep into a tournament I can get. I like to take my shots with strong situations early to mid stages but I will shift gears and open up WAY BEFORE most tighter players do. As such, there's a point where either I build a USEFUL stack, or bust. Harrington does a good job on this in his 2nd book. I am not comfortable going NUTS and exiting very early trying to build a big stack early.

[Takethepot25]

When your playing with weaker players like that you have to only play premium hands. Figure them on calling with bad cards and draws and push hard all the way when you have something. If they catch on you theres nothing you can do but keep doing it.