When NOTHING is going right.

Went to 3 seperate tournys tonight (same place) and did horrid in all of them. I had absolut sh.it for hands, and when i did get a hand, it would always be beat. Since folding soo many hands, half my stack was gone, maybe more, on each game. What strategy do you guys use to gather chips back up if you dont get the cards? I always stay patient, but nothing ever comes good my way. Do you try to push, or stay back and wait for the monster? I've read the book Poker Zen, and it has helped, but when nothing is going right, nothing matters on what you have read in any book. Just curious what you guys do to get passed the cold card streaks.

-Jake-

when the cards are slow keep fighting. Tourneys have about as much to do with cards as baseball does with hockey. Play tight early and then loosen up later playing position and stack size. I realize you are new here so if you havent read them already try Ryppy and Rada's posts at the top of the forum. The whole idea in a tourney is to survive and build a chip stack. Once you build your stack use it to pressure the small stacks. It can be extremely hard to build this stack when the cards just seem to be colder than ice. But look at it this way. If you are playing an MTT, the blinds dont raise very fast. And if you play SNG's, usually 2-3 lose out before the blinds become an issue. Just wait on those cards early and dont be afraid to be aggressive.

Don't panic! Yesterday a guy in a tourny came back to win in with one $500 chip and blinds were 200/400.

First, evaluate how you got to a short stack. Are you playing too many junk hands or have you lost a big pot or have you just been folding everything and getting blinded away? In any case, once you stack is less than 10 BB's you are in AI mode.

When you go into AI mode, be very selective about position and stack size of you opponents. It is common for everyone to say "pick on the little stacks" but that is not always a good idea unless you have a very big hand. Think about it, the small stack is just as desperate as you and will be more willing to gamble it up. I perfer to pick on the medium stacks. Those stacks that will be crippled if they call your moves. You can beat medium stacks into sumbission with aggressive play. Just make sure you have position. Raise the blinds hard to steal when you can from late position. Don't be afraid to come over the top of a medium stack AI after they raise is up from middle position. If you are in the BB and face a bunch of limpers, crank in AI and pick up all the dead money.

What hands do you do this with? Any pocket pair, AK, AQ AJ and the like. To survive in a tourny with a healthy stack you want to avoid coin flips. However, on the short stack you are praying for them.

Your goal is to steal enough blinds or pick off enough limpers to the point where you survive another orbit waiting on those premium hands or big flops.

Nevertheless, no matter how well you play and manage your chips, you will have days where the cards just aren't in the hole, you never hit a flop, you take a couple beats or you lose more than your fair share of coinflips. That's just part of the game.

you gotta steal more blinds in LP to build up your stack. it doesn't matter what your cards are. if you manage to get heads up against the BB, he will miss the flop 2/3 of the time. then all you have to do is bet out and you win the blinds.