I tried to lose.. Really I did..
I was playing two tables. One was doing decent and the other was killing me. Every AA killed on the river by a draw, trips beat by houses, it was bad. So I am down to my final 2.50 out of $25.
I then tried to lose it all. I got dealt 9-10. I raised. It was re-raised pre-flop. I raised. The flop was AKQ. Bet. I am all in. One other player calls. Turn is a rag. I am getting ready to leave. River is a 10 for a nice pot. I have now doubled up to five whole dollars!
I really really tried to lose. Really I did. I raise with a sooooted Hammer. I get raised and re-raise again. It gets capped. A single diamond for my flush draw. I bet it. Capped again. Nice Diamond. Sweet. You know what the river was, right? A Diamond! So now I am back in the game. I have around fifteen bucks to play with, and I ended the session down five bucks. I was up a little more than that on the other table so in the end it was break even.
Here is the point. I used to tell myself when I got down to the final few bucks that playing it hard was wrong. I have heard everyone say “Just leave the table. Save your few bucks.”. I am not so sure now. If I was playing in an NL game and was severely short stacked what would I do? I would start going all in at the end and either double up to a respectable number, go out, or make a few blinds pushing people around. I am either back in the game or going home anyway.
Why does this not apply to a ring game? If I have decent cards and I am way ahead I am going to play them with my normal slightly aggressive style. However if I am critically short stacked why not play them with the aggression meter turned way up? Once I get back to a safe level I can play my game again. If I bust out then so be it. At least I tried. So go for it!
posted by SirFWALGMan at
9:07 AM
2 Comments:
As my friend Steel_Rain would say, this is a statistical anomoly. When you're nearly down to the felt and you opt to 'turn up the agression' you may not have the cards to really make that pay off. More often than not, you're just throwing your last few chips away (this goes for tournaments too). From what you described above, you got some very lucky draws playing any two cards. I think that probably falls more into the luck than skill/agression category.
12:32 PM
Quite simple, really.
In a tournament, short stack aggression is a last ditch effort to "Get back in the game" or to survive a little longer, etc.
In a ring game, these desperate attempts are pretty pointless, as a couple of double ups and.. oh look, you're back where you started. You bust out the three, and you rebuy, and... you're back where you started, but down an entire buy in.
If you can just drop 23 more bucks into your stack, why go nuts with the remaining two, and then buy for 25?
And btw, just for my own curiousity... on that 9T hand you capped.. wtf did the other guy have? 99? 88?
I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty amazed at what he was holding ;P
10:36 PM
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