I was playing in a deep-stack event in Birmingham, England and doing quite nicely thank-you very much, having popped my stack from 10k to over 16k in the first couple of levels. Strangely enough there were two Phil Hellmuth wannabe no-shows at my table whose stacks were slowing blindly away. The dead money had been making the play a little more aggressive than usual, but when the tournament director made a bizarre ruling that the vacant stacks had to post blinds every single hand – and that amount doubled every orbit! – the action really took off. At the 100/200 level there were thousands of chips in the middle before anyone had looked at their cards. The ensuing madness saw me shoving all-in over a late stealer for 18k with pocket Tens and the raiser effectively ‘forced’ to call with A-To.
It was a crazy decision by the tournament director which had a massive effect on our table. These things happen though, and not just in live poker.
Online shenanigans
Can you think of a time where you’ve been deep into a tournament and there’s been a disconnected player in the big blind? The ensuing pushing and shoving as players battle their way to the juicy defenceless blind can have significant repercussions on the tournament and your tournament life in particular. Just because players are attacking a disconnected blind it doesn’t mean they don’t have a hand and if it’s a tight player raising the chances are they do have a genuine hand. If the raising is coming from a middle-to-late position player who appears to be on the looser side, this can be a great spot to attack with a wide range of hands – as long as you have some fold equity, of course!
Another example is when a player unused to live play wants to raise but puts a single chip in without announcing ‘raise’, so is forced to just call instead. If play is still fairly deep you should now be tempted to enter the hand with almost any two cards, as they’ve telegraphed that they have a good hand which is susceptible to cracking. And if anyone subsequently raises, they must – unless they’ve really not been paying attention – have a premium holding, in which case you can easily get away from your limped hand. Perfect!