What to do when card dead in a tournament?

jugglegeek

On Sunday I played a live £5 tournement at the local casino and had the worst cards I've ever seen. Only hand I played was pocket 88 and got out drawn on a K-high flop (it cost me about 15% of my stack to find out after a pre-flop raise and then a c-bet on the flop). Then AKo that didn't hit anything.

After this I had about 5k (from a starting stack of 7k) and I just couldn't get a hand. Only ace was A2o UTG and had some raggy queens - which I never play. After a couple of levels not playing a single hand I made a big PFR with JTs under the gun knowing I would be able to steal the blinds with this move and I hit pocket tens on the button later, again I raised and got no callers (which is good I supose because I was bound to get out drawn by cards that were calling me.

I eventually got blinded out shoved 9 big blinds with K9 and got called by AJ (hit hit a full house just for the record!)

My question is this: What should I do to increase my chances of survival in these situations. Should I play some creative bluffs in the hope of out-lasting my dead spell? Should I play like I did and continue waiting for premium hands in good spots? Or should I play some squeeze plays and steals to maintain my chipstack and hope that people don't call me?

When you see the same people making the money in MTTs repeatedly on this site, it can't just be because they got good cards regularly and played them well. I've done well before in big tournements (live and online) but these were in situations where I have got good cards at the right time and played them well.

Is this just the way with poker or is there something that can be done to play your way to a decent chip stack early on without having good cards.

jgn

if u dont have cards play position raise in late position never early becuase u have been playing tight to the other people eyes u should take down a few blinds and maybe u may hit a moster with poor cards which people will never put you on.

GaryQQQ

It's just the way with poker sometimes. Everybody including the consistant winners will get tournaments where they pick up no premium hands and they miss every single flop they see. There's not a lot you can really do about it, use well timed aggression with any two cards to win pots after you've built a tight image. When you get short you have to get aggro in position, use shoves and re-shoves with anything half-decent and hope you win when you finally get a caller. By the time you're down to say 10BB you should be ready to double or bust. Folding your way to a tiny stack is the worst mistake, doubling up with AA or KK is not much use when you've only got 2BB left.

grantorino

this will happen sometimes, look for good steal spots in late position against tight blinds, and good resteal spots against people who open a lot. The latter should be very profitable when your image is rock like