Taking a Hit

The reason for my article today stems from a tournament that I just busted out of that was the cause of a bad beat. Though I busted on a different hand the bad beat I am speaking of is the reason that my chip stack became crippled. I have often heard that success in a multi-table tournament generates from the ability to overcome hits along the way. For example today I had a 25 big blind stack when I made a raise on a player that was holding a 15 big blind stack. I made a raise with KJ on the button and the 15 big blind stack made a move all in. The pot odds were appropriate for me to make the call and that’s what I ended up doing. The big blind flipped over K 10, so I ended up having the player dominated but he went on to hit the 10 which came as no surprise. If I were to win this pot I would be sitting with a 40 bb stack, but since I lost my chip stack was crushed down to a 10 bb stack. I then proceeded to bust the tournament making my all-in move.

The point is that whether or not you play the best poker you can play you must be able to overcome all the obstacles along the way. It doesn’t matter if you get your hand in dominating your opponents hand, because they can always come out on top when you least expect it. I mean you could be cruising along two hours into the tournament without a flinch, but out of no where your chip stack gets rocked by an unfortunate bad beat. With the fields that online poker presents to us today it’s essential that players build big stacks so that they can take hits along the way. There is a major difference in taking a bad beat when holding a 25 big blind stack and 50 big blind stack. Though this may seem obvious it’s very tough to overcome bad beats when you have a short stack to begin with. I am starting to become a big believer in trying to acquire big stacks when you can get them. It may not be the worst idea in the world to take a risk once in awhile to obtain a big chip stack. If you choose to play tight and wait for big hands to come along you may not have a stack that can afford to take a hit. If your one big hand ends up getting beat then you may be out of the tournament.

I always had the mentality to play conservative and play tight early in a tournament, but I do see the benefits of playing aggressive. For one the beginning of the tournament is a good time to gain chips by attacking the weaker players’ chips. This will help build a stack that can afford to take losing hands when you are in a big tournament. It won’t always be easy sailing in a tournament and anyone that has played poker should know this by now. I am going to start looking to build a big chip stack early in a tournament, so that I can afford to take unfortunate mishaps along the way. Good luck avoiding the bad beats, and good luck at the tables my friends.

Craig Fleck

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