Tournament problem

Velvet Alley

I know this topic has been brought up a million time regarding inexperienced players raising with less than average hands. My question is when your in a tounament situation ( live, not online) and you get a hand like AJsuited, KQsuited, smaller pairs like 7's 8's 9's(o.k. hands, not great) and the inexperience,loose, maniac whatever you want to call them raises 10 to 20 x the big blind (this would be a typical raise for this player).  This is a general question so lets say I have a slightly above average stack in the tounament. The inexperienced player has been rasing with any suited like K4, Q7, J5, 8 10, 6 9 and has managed to build a slightly larger stack. In most cases You figure you have 2 over cards,do you  gamble before the flop or bite the bullet and hope you get some giant cards and attemp to take them out?

ScottyZ

My intuition on this is that you should not go too far out of your way to pick off such a player. The key here is that you're talking about a tournament. In a cash game, I'd be willing greatly expand my playing range in order to mix it up with such a maniac.

However, in a tournament, with a lot of the chips going in pre-flop where edges are generally small for all but the powerhouse hands, you often just have to bide your time on the sidelines while the maniac's fireworks are going off.

I would, however, probably make some minor strategy adjustments. For example, consider the specific hand AK. Though certainly often playable, this hand might cause you some trouble in a tournament if you get too heavily involved (especially pre-flop) with a solid player and/or a fox. On the other hand, I'd beat the maniac you described into the pot with AK if he put in a "standard" 20*BB raise.

With a healty stack, I probably wouldn't want to get involved very heavily pre-flop with the kinds of hands you mentioned (AJ, KQ, 77-99, etc). Would you call a 10*BB or 20*BB raise with these hands against an unknown player? Certainly not. Even when up against a crazy player, you can't wander too far off from the fundamentals. These kinds of hands certainly rate to be a small favorite most of the time against the maniac, but the edge you end up having in these kinds of spots figures to be small enough so that variance reduction becomes a factor. Have patience, and pick up a really big hand before making your stand against the psycho.

Keep the Scharf vs. Kournikova tennis match in mind. Don't try to outplay a maniac. He will outplay himself.

ScottyZ

Yorkpoker

ScottyZ wrote:

Keep the Scharf vs. Kournikova tennis match in mind. Don't try to outplay a maniac. He will outplay himself.

ScottyZ

Is there any way you managed to tape the match? I want to watch Dave drool and pant while doing something other than play poker.