Big stack going card dead into the bubble

Is it even possible to win when you’re card dead?

3 games tonight, I managed to take a huge stack advantage into the bubble, and then couldn’t find a single hand that I could KO my final two opponents.

I’ll come in with between 12,000-20000 chips, having hit a couple of huge hands earlier in the game. It’ll get 4-up, and everyone’s real tight, and maybe one of the short stacks starts shoving every hand. I know they’re shoving garbage, but no one’s calling them, and I’m not so keen on calling them with 53, 64, 72, 93, 84 offsuit, and so I watch a steady stream of ever-increasing blinds drain away from my stack, and I can’t do anything about it.

Once in a while, I’ll get a hand I can play, and I’ll open, and the small stacks will get out of the way. Then I’ll go through another 4-5 orbits of nothing, catch a random Ace or King, or maybe a “nice” hand like AJ+, open, knock someone down back to 2-3BB, and I just can’t get them to commit and go all in so I can get the KO.

They’ll stage 2-3-4, even 5 or more comebacks, and eventually one will either get the other one, and then we’ll be even stacked, and I’ll still be card dead, and they’ll be able to win with anything.

I’ll flop a straight, and suddenly they forget how to shove, and I end up checking it to the river waiting for them to try to steal it from me, and they check back all the way and I win the minimum possible pot.

This is a stage of the game where I should be bullying them and getting them out and off the table and out of my way, but all I do is wear them down to their last BB, then they double up, and then they go on a rally and come back.

You could give my opponents a fair quarter and they’d flip heads with it 20 times in a row.

I’ve tried folding and waiting for the cold streak to end and get something I can win with, and it never comes.

I’ve tried calling with a wide range and trust that I can catch them shoving junk, or that my junk will catch a lucky trips or two pair or that they’ll just miss the board while I pair my bottom card, the way everyone knocks me out when I shove AJ.

I’ve tried getting aggressive and raising pre-emptively to head off the shove, and it works until it doesn’t, and then they end up doubling up anyway.

3 big stacks go into the bubble tonight, and I come out with two 3rds and a 2nd. Even 20k vs. 2 and 3k, and I can’t find a win.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Today’s ridiculous hands