Hi fellow pokerplayers
I bet u guys all know what its like to play a sng and to have no playable hands in the early stages. Then you finally pick up a good hand like AKs, QQ or KK with approximately 10-14 BB.
Now comes the dilemma... Ofcourse you want to get value from your strong hand, but you are also vulnerable, because most of the other players have you covered.
In situations like this I often choose to play my hand a little tricky to get max value from the hand. However, this tricky play is often punished and I get sucked out on (usually by a weak player).
My question is: Should I abandon this tricky play, because my stack is so low and simply push all-in or just look at it as any other bad beat and stick with playing for max value.
I will give a couple of examples of situations where my trap goes wrong or I lure my opponent into committing himself with a weaker hand, only to end up losing. These are all from 10$ speed sng's with a starting stack of 1500 and all hands are before the bubble game.
1) I have 1100 chips the blinds are 50/100.
I wake up in the BB with KK. A weak player with 2000 chips min raises from the SB. Instead of pushing I reraise to 600 to lure him in. Villain calls and the flop comes AJ3. He checks and I push my last 500 chips. I get instacalled by A7off.
I play it like this because I am pretty sure he is weak and alot of the times will fold to a push.
2) I have 1100 chips and the blinds are 50/100.
I get AKs in the SB. I have a read on the BB that he is a weak player who raises way too many marginal hands and will try to steal or bluff whenever given the opportunity. I feel quite confident he will raise a very wide range if I complete. So I complete the SB and villain (2500 chips) raises to 400. I insta-reshove all-in and get called by K9diamonds. The board comes 3d 10d Js Qc 8d and my broadway gets rivered by a flush :(.
3) I have 1400 chips and the blinds are 100/200.
I am on CO with QQ. A very loose player with 4500 chips who had been limping every hand and stealing alot of pots on the flop, limps from UTG+1. Instead of pushing I raise to 800 chips (with a very tight image, as I had hardly played a hand) to induce a call by smaller PP or other weak holding. Ofcourse I get called and the flop comes KK4. Villain checks and I push my last 600 chips, only to get called by K8s.
I tend to make these kind of moves when I have a read on a player, usually against overly aggressive or very loose weak players. The reason behind it, maximum value obviously. However, I am starting to wonder if this is a mistake because of my stack size.
I would love to hear what you guys think of this. Should I have pushed these hands with a good chance of the villain folding or should I just suck up the bad beats against these donkeys and tell myself I will win the hand next time.
Thanx for the feedback
