PokerSoup Forums > Strategy > Underpair in Aggressive Game

Underpair in Aggressive Game

    • avatar for Jason M
    • I was watching Poker Superstars Invitational tonight. I think it's a terrible show, but I saw something interesting, nonetheless.

      Blinds: 10k/20k
      Starting chips: 300k
      Players: 6

      Most players have around 300k (the game just started). There have already been multiple all in moves, so it's a pretty aggressive game. One player (I forget who) gets pocket fours, and goes all in under the gun. I was very surprised... Multiple people had called all ins already, and with 44, you are pretty much at best flipping a coin.

      I think it would be smarter to just fold. You know if you are called you have a good chance of being out, and people seemed very willing to call. Maybe I missed something because they weren't showing all the hands... Or maybe I'm under-estimating how badly players needed to double up.

      Thoughts?

    • avatar for Ethan
    • Maybe the player realized how dumb the blind structure was and decided, "Well, it's time to go big or go home". Doubling up in the beginning with those blinds would mean you play tight for the rest of the game and probably coast to at least 3rd. Well played, you could easily get to the top 3 with the biggest stack.

      Or am I giving the players too much credit?

    • avatar for Jason M
    • All these players were some of the best in the world, so I don't think you were giving them too much credit. However, I don't think you're right about the "coasting to the end". The chip lead changed at least 10 times - people were forced to call all-ins with 64o and J6s just because of blinds and the relation of the chip stacks to them. Of course, this may not have necessarily been obvious to all the players at the beginning.

    • avatar for Nick L
    • Ya that show sucks I don't like it the blind structure forces people to just gamble pretty much. The announcers are bad with Chirs Rose and Michael Konick even watching early rounds of the main event is better.

    • avatar for FREMONTkyle
    • this is a made for TV even that has been around for a while its basically the equivelant of playing 6 handed turbo sit N gos on line its actually a strategic game and a pre flop game. barry greenstein created the tourney structure and its all about acumulating point and even though your not allowed to play sit back poker and yes they have to occasuonally gamble there are 6 different matches in the first round so the break of the cards should somewhat cancel out the variance created by the aggressive blinds all players pay 30k to enter the event.as it gets deeper there is quite a bit of strategy in the game and its extremly situational because you have to know who is ahead of you in points and sometimes you have to fold the best hand to keep from chancing the 60 40 in order to move up onnsen hae gus hae spot for extra points there was one a year ago or so where gus hansen had to win to get in the next round so he blindly pushed all in 19 hands in a row and frustrated allot of players and ended up winning and moving to the next round