Dealing with a Bad Rush of Cards

When watching professional players play poker on TV, it seems like they always pick up good hands, like AA, followed by KK, and the AK. This is not the case. Not all hands and moments of the tournament are filmed, thus the selectively televised moments cause it to seem as if every player gets a playable hand each time they receive cards. The fact is, every poker player goes through a rush of bad cards, where they receive nothing remotely playable hand upon hand dealt.

When playing online poker, players are all too familiar with the times where it seems like no matter what, they simply cannot pick up a decent playing hand. More so, these bad rushes of cards can come at the absolute worst times.

For example, a player has 5000 chips with blinds 150-300 and antes just start to kick in. The player is in decent shape until he goes 30-50 hands without be able to take down one pot. He simply does not have a playable hand, and the only time he picks up a semi decent starting hand, such as 66, he is under the gun and has to fold it. These situations occur all the time and players need to learn how to deal with these bad rushes of cards.

Make Things Happen

The main goal of every tournament player is to survive and that should always be the number one thing on a players mind. However, in a time like this, players also have to maintain a chip stack. Surviving is no good if a player blinds down to 500 chips with blinds being 500-1000. During these bad rushes of cards, players have to do both.

The main goal is to survive through the bad rush of cards until the good rush of cards comes. Then when the good cards come, the player can build his stack rather than just maintain it. Therefore, during the bad rush, players have to take a few risks.

First, every time action is folded to the player on the button, he should raise any two cards. Of course, this is just a blind steal, but that is okay. After all, if the player can steal the blinds once per orbit, his stack will not diminish at all. Raising is actually acceptable anytime action folds around to the player in any late position.

In addition, players should abuse limpers. If there is a habitual limper at the table, raising all in from late position will usually get him to fold, and the player with the bad cards can still win a lot of chips. Most importantly, do not play out of position. This is the worst thing a player can do.

Remember, poker is about the cards and position, so when the cards are not on the side of the player, lean towards the help of position to maintain your stack until the good cards come.