Last night I played a $55 tourney at the casino where the flops kept slapping me in the face.

To put it in perspective, I played 45 minutes before busting out, and in that 45 minutes, in say, what 30ish hands, I had:

AA
KK
QQ
TT
77 twice (both times from button in unraised pot)
33 (from BB)
AK

My aces won though I was called to the river with a weak King.

My tens lost to jacks.

My kings and queens I raised big preflop, and was called by AK and A6 and lost both times (A6 vs QQ was my allin hand...with 10x BB).

My 77 lost to a rivered flush.

etc, etc, etc.

I did win a hand with A4 in an unraised pot where FIVE players checked to the river and no one paired the board!!!

No, I'm not complaining...I'm trying to figure out how to play these better, because I'm thinking, logically, starting with 3000 chips, starting at 25/25 blinds, with 15 minute blind levels, I should last longer with those hands, but maybe not.

The issue here is, every time I went to the river where I had bet they saw I was betting a hand...two guys at the table even remarked "OK, we believe you" - I bluffed once, and they didn't see that one. Every hand I showed was real - I folded my kings faceup when the guy with AK flopped his ace. I folded my tens faceup to his jacks. I probably played half the hands and wanted the table to know I wasn't a maniac....that my pf raises and flop bets meant something.

But these guys kept calling my pf raises.

So...in this type of situation...is small ball better (eg. only minraise pf, not 3-5x BB)...I'm usually loathe to it, but it was obvious that these guys had decided they wanted to play their hands, and no raise was gonna change their mind...even though they KNEW I had a real hand....they didn't care if they were out of position or not.

Or, do I overbet, let these guys call, because in the long run I will get their chips....even if it's just their pf call chips.

Something tells me I didn't adjust quickly enough, but maybe the cards just didn't want to work with me...I don't know....any insight would be greatly appreciated.

I'm thinking the opposite of small ball - if these players are going to call my PF raises even if I overbet, then I should be overbetting my premium hands since they are basically calling stations.

I want to get the maximum # of chips in the pot when I'm ahead.

I think that I would play more small ball with hands like suited connectors and gappers and small PP where if I hit, then it's likely that these players will call down my made hands and if I don't hit, then I can let the hands go fairly cheaply.

Get more money in there when you're pretty sure you're ahead. Try to reduce your preflop callers to 1 or 2 when you have big hands. Keep the bets small only when you have great multiway hands. Switch gears if the table figures-out what you're doing.

And don't show your cards unless you have to. Always keep them guessing.

I'd almost be willing to play like I had the short stack if I was playing a table like this one.

I'd probably make huge raises. Enough to make me want to be in a push position if I liked the flop. Flop is OK to good I can either push or draw more money from them and push the river. With gamblers I like the one big swoop.

If I'm confident I'm the best when the money goes, that's all I can ask. The table isn't gonna change until the stacks get small and then you have to worry about people calling because they have to. Just go all-in with the best of it The later in the hand, the better.

If they're going to gamble, you need to make it not worth there while or shut down completely until a few of them knock thmselves out.


2 cents