Last Friday, we had our usual monthly tourney and I found myself in the final two up against a good buddy of mine who is loose aggressive but also a very good player. I'm trying to get a read on him but his range seems huge and he's never involved in hands where he has strong hole cards (unless they're aces or kings). He either wins by very aggressive betting causing folds or by having disguised winning hands such as 2-pairs of low cards or low trips. He seems to play 7-2 a lot and hits trips or two pair. I pretty much started folding if a 7 hit the board and I didn't have a made hand.
In the last hand of the evening, we were broadly even at around 80k each (he had a tiny amount more than me) and the blinds were something like 4k/8k so we were basically at the end of the tourney and the blinds are hurting big time. I'm in the BB with AQo and shoved, knowing he's likely to call anything. He calls and turns 7c8c and the board bricks out for me and he rivers an 8 to take it down.
It's not this specific hand I'm asking advice on but generally, when this late in the game, how do you maintain your stack when quickly getting into situations where a single hand can take half your stack just to see the flop? I'm generally playing TAG but can't wait forever to hit a premium hand when the blinds will suck out my stack in a few orbits. Is it just gambol at this stage or is there something I can do differently?
In the last hand of the evening, we were broadly even at around 80k each (he had a tiny amount more than me) and the blinds were something like 4k/8k so we were basically at the end of the tourney and the blinds are hurting big time. I'm in the BB with AQo and shoved, knowing he's likely to call anything. He calls and turns 7c8c and the board bricks out for me and he rivers an 8 to take it down.
It's not this specific hand I'm asking advice on but generally, when this late in the game, how do you maintain your stack when quickly getting into situations where a single hand can take half your stack just to see the flop? I'm generally playing TAG but can't wait forever to hit a premium hand when the blinds will suck out my stack in a few orbits. Is it just gambol at this stage or is there something I can do differently?