888poker pro Sofia Lovgren is here to answer all of your poker problems. Email us at pokerplayer@plyp.co.uk or Tweet @pokerplayer365 now!
Micro strategy
I was playing the recent Micro Millions Main Event and I made it into the money with an average stack. I had about 25BBs and picked up A♥-J♥ in the small blind. It was raised pre flop by a fairly tight player in mid-position and I decided to just call as I was out of position. The flop came down Q♥-Q♦-3♥. I checked, he bet and I called. The 8♣ came on the turn and I decided to shove in the hope of getting him to fold, with some flush outs if I did get called. He snap-called with Q-8 and I was drawing dead. How do you think I played the hand? Should I have three-bet or even shoved pre op? S. Insall
I would not at-call in the small blind with such a shallow stack out of position. If the other player is tight as you say, you can just fold pre flop. If he is loose or in later position you can three-bet and then call it off. You can also shove profitably against a lot of players pre op. It really comes down to their ranges. Post flop, I think it’s fine
Catch a cold
What do you do when you just can’t win a hand? Play through it or just give up and try again another day? Sometimes I just can’t seem to win a pot – if I’ve got something, someone else has something better. Villain
I believe in momentum. When you have a good feeling, just go on playing. If you just can’t win a pot and have a bad feeling, take a break. A good idea could be to go through and analyse the hands you have played and see if you could have played them better.
Sometimes you need to be more critical in order to improve. Getting back to your question, I would say it’s definitely good to stop playing for the day and come back another day if you’re not feeling it.
Take it home
Do you have home games with your friends and if so do you have a proper poker table? I’m thinking of investing in some equipment but I don’t know if I should get a table or whether that’s OTT? You can get cheap felts to go over your table, but I don’t know if they’re good enough? What would you recommend? PaulM
I don’t have a real poker table at home but poker table felts that I can put over the kitchen table. They work just fine, take less space and are easy to store.
Monster stack
How do people get such huge stacks in tournaments? I was playing an online tournament and was doing quite well. My stack was above average and I was steadily increasing. I looked at the leaderboard though and there were some people who had ten times what I’d got. How do they manage to get such a massive stack? And how can I do it?!? Anon
There are always some players who run super good and get big stacks very early in tournaments. Don’t worry about them, they probably won’t make the final table. Take care of your own stack and make sure you have enough blinds. You will usually find spots where you can win big pots with goods hands if you are patient enough. If you are card dead you’ll have to make some moves every now and again so you don’t get too short.
However, it’s great to have a big stack to put pressure on other players and to get you through any coolers.
The way to grow a big stack is to open up your game and play more hands. It will increase the variance and you will bust more tournaments earlier, but you’ll hopefully go deep in a few which will compensate.
This strategy is best when there are a lot of bad players in a tournament Mistakes from bad players can win you some nice pots and even some quick double-ups early on.
Busman’s holiday
Can you recommend any good low stakes tournaments in Europe? Me and a friend are booking a holiday and we’d like to play a tournament while we’re out there. Buy-in would be about €100 (or maybe a bit more if it was a good one). Ideally it would be pretty big so we’d be playing for some decent money. Thanks for your help! Spencer
You could come to London in the middle of October for 888poker’s first ever Live Festival. I think it will be great and there are lots of good tournaments with varying buy-ins. Come say hi and let’s grab a drink there!
Sofia’s schedule
Are you going to be playing any EPTs or any other major tournaments this year? Naz
I’ve been playing lots of live cash games lately. I plan to play WPT Borgata in Atlantic City and then I’m going to play poker in Asia for the first time! I plan to play the Asia Championship of Poker in Macau in the beginning of November.
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