When To Play Silly?

Silly Poker Is Good

Silly Poker Is Good

Tournament poker is different from cash games! This may strike as stating the obvious but it still needs emphasizing – why?Well while playing a free roll in which there were 10,000 players I was struck by comments made towards a guy who was short stack but went all in with 8, 3 off suit and won a hand. This guy later went on to finish 4th.

Obviously he was labelled a fish, a donk and an idiot. But in my view he did the correct thing because when a guy raises and get called by 5 other players that means they have reasonable starting hands, which mean they usually have high cards or high pairs. He then consciously or sub-consciously took the view that there ere a lot of low value cards left in the stack, therefore giving him a chance of upsetting the apple cart. If he loses he would have been out sooner or later so why not get it over and done with.

To me this makes sense and sometimes pay off and pay off handsomely. In a cash game this would be financial suicide and bad for the table image because you will get called all the time as they feel you are a loose player. Getting called all the time maybe great when you have the nuts but sometimes you do not want people calling you because if you have 2 pair they may be drawing for a straight or flush and you know they will invariably get that straight or flush.

On the other hand it can also help you gain more cash because they may think you are doing on of your bluffs when you have the nuts – which if you read my blogs on a regular basis you will know that I am the king of making people think I am a nut job. <LINK>

So in-conclusion playing like a lunatic in a tournament, especially online tournament can pay off if used sensibly and sparingly.