Often to advance into the deep stages of a tournament you need to accumulate chips in spots in addition to those when you hold premium hands. The most common example is stealing the blinds; but by now this is so obvious. I've read that Andy Bloch / Layne Flack have another play - they raise under the gun to steal the blinds! This is because a raise under the gun - usually means aces / kings / AK and so the other players need to find an exceptional hand to play back.

A play that I have found works well is that of picking up limpers money. Say the blinds are 50 / 100 and I am in late position with 3k in chips. If there are 3 limpers infront of me - the pot is 450 (incl blinds). I tend to play fairly tight and so my raises tend to get respected. In this situation I can raise to 500 to try and pick up the pot. I am risking 500 to win 450. So the play really only has to work about 50% of the time to be +EV. I find that the blinds and early position limpers are unlikely to call as they are worried about players re-raising behind them (who may have been slowplaying a monster). The later position limpers tend to fold too as they probably just called with marginal hands such as J10 due to the pot odds offered by the multiway pot. So the EP players fold because of the LP players and the LP players were only ever in because of the EP players and so fold too (if they were strong they would have raised before wouldn't they?).

If I get re-raised - easy decision I fold. However, if I get called it's really not that bad. I have position and my opponent is only likely to hit the flop 1/3 times. I tend to think that limpers have similar hands such as A10, KJ, JQ, K10 etc so if a player calls with AQ, I believe that a number of his 'outs' are dead as they were held by other limpers and so are now in the muck. This is why I tend to make this play with hands such as 78s, 89. I don't want to be dominated by making this play with A10 and be up against AJ.

I have only started making this play the last few weeks and it may work better for me than others due to my tight table image. But I estimate that I win the pot uncontested pre-flop about 65% of the time, re-rasied 15% and called 20% of the time (of which I win on the flop 50%). So I estimate that I win about 75% of the time - which certainly is + EV play.

Any thoughts on this type of play / and any suggestions on any other plays to get chips when holding less than premium hands.

The biggest problem with this strategy is that limpers at this point in the tournament are often pulling the limp with monsters.

i think its a pretty good strategy providing ur opponents will lay down hands like kj or a10. In the online tourneys i play in most players are apt to call a raise with hands like that, especially if theyve seen u make a few steals recently. Against these types of players i just prefer to steal the blinds as the first player to enter the pot when i'm in late position. Most players try to counteract this by lowering their calling requirements. They start calling with hands like a2 or q9 or even worse hands and hope they cathch a piece of the flop. These players are great to play against because they will give up their hand on the flop if they miss it and u can often end up winning a bigger pot.
say the blinds are 50-100, u have 3k and make it 300 on the button and a weak player in the bb who's blind u've raised the last couple of times in a row calls. The pot is now 650 and he checks to u and u bet 450. If we assume he'll hit his hand and go with it 1/3 of the time, then that bet on the flop has an EV of about 300.
this play can get more complicated against players who will play back at u before or on the flop with weak hands and the texture of the flop also affects ur decision. u can end up losing a large chunk of ur stack and put urself in difficult situations on the flop. however there are also times when u'll raise in late position with a legitmate hand and ur opponets will think ur on a steal, and there are times when u raise with garbage and hit big on the flop.
i know its a pretty obvious strategy but against weaker players when the blind:stack ratio is big i think its a good way to play.


anyway thats my first post.... not the most original or exciting thing said on the forum i'm sure. what do u think :?:

Welcome to the forum. Nice first post.