How To Blow Off A HUGE Chip Stack In An Amazingly Short Time

[MTPaid]

How To Blow Off A HUGE Chip Stack In An Amazingly Short Time OR My Worst Tournament Experience Ever.

This is surprisingly easy to accomplish when you get a big pot, throw in some idiots, mix in a total lack of respect for a big stack, some bad luck, and 1 bad play. I was going to post this in the Low Content section, but there may be some big stack "what to do, what not to do" strategy here so I'll post it here and if it's completely worthless the mods can move it.

I'll pick it up with blinds 20/40 very early on in the Full Tilt Midnight Madness $10+1and call this Hand #1 showing you how I became the big stack.
Hand #1
I have 3,420 and the only player with a bigger stack than I have (3700) limps UTG. I raise to 200 in MP1 w/ [Qh], folded to SB who calls (3200) and UTG calls. So we now have the 3 biggest stacks at the table in.
SB - 3090
UTG - 3540
Me - 3220
[8s][Jd] Pot 640
Checked to me, I bet 500. SB folds, UTG calls.
Pot 1640
Check, I bet 1320, UTG pushes, I call instantly. He turns over [4d] and he misses.

Stack size 7080 still w/ blinds changing to 25/50

Hand #2 - I am immediately moved to the BB at a new table.
CO open-limps, Button limps, SB limps, I have [Qd] and raise to 250. CO had 2880 and everyone else had significantly less. All fold and this conversation ensues:
Button: nr
Me: ty
Button: i would have too
Me: would have what?
Button: raised the limpers w your stack
Me: I had a pretty solid hand
Button: sure you did
Observer: of course you did. what do you expect him to say
Me: you could have pushed and found out

So apparently the logic is that if a big stack raises he can never have anything. This was the only time they actually folded to a raise of mine. You would expect the big stack would be the hunter, but in this case they are all coming after me. I must be full of it. Continuing.....we skip ahead just 2 hands when the next big one comes up.

Stack size 7,205 w/ blinds 25/50

Hand #4
OTB w/ [3c]. I limp after UTG and UTG+1 limps.
[Kc][3h] Pot 250
UTG bets 100, I call, everyone else folds.
Pot 450
UTG again bets 100, I raise 400, he pushes for 975 total. I must be full of it so I call. He turns over the straight and I miss my outs.

Stack size 5,905 w/ blinds 25/50

Again I am moved after the last hand, only 3 hands at that table and 4 hands into the new new table this happens....
Hand #8
Blinds 30/60 now, I open-raise to 180 in MP2 w/ [6s]. CO calls and has 3,705 behind.
[As][7c] Pot 450
I bet 360 and he calls.
Pot 1,170
I bet 600 and he min-raises to 1200. I take my time and push. He calls and shows [5s]. He picked a crappy time to slow-play. I win this one.

I am now not only the table leader, but the tournament leader with over 700 left.
Stack size 9870 w/ blinds 30/60

Hand #10 Wasting no time. 2 hands later.....
I limp in UTG+1 w/ [8s] and it's folded around to BB (2720)
[2d][Kd] Pot 150
I bet 100 and he calls. Great, so he has a flush draw.
Pot 350
He checks, I bet 200 and he calls.
Pot 750
He bets pot on his missed draw and I call with trips. But he has the nut flush [9d]. Every single hand monster vs monster after the flop.

Stack size 8,670 w/ blinds 30/60
Hand #11 This is the next hand. [Qc] UTG. I limp, another limp, MP2 raises to 360 and has 805 left. I put him all-in and he calls w/ [Qh] and I win.

Very next hand, Hand #12, I get 99 in the BB, but since they're not really gonna fold to me I check it down with UTG+1 limper who shows [4c].

Stack size 10075 w/ blinds 30/60

Move ahead 10 hands to Hand #22.
I open raise OTB to 300 (blinds are 50/100 now) w/ [6h]. BB (4280) calls.
[9d][7s] Pot 650
I bet 450 and he calls.
Pot 1550
He bets 1000 into me. Only thing I can think of is slowplaying a set. I fold. He shows me [5d]. Maybe this was supposed to tilt me, but I just thought he was very stupid. No respect for the big stack.

Stack size 8615 w/ blinds 50/100

Skip ahead just 4 more hands to Hand #26
UTG+1 min-raises to 200 and has just 680 behind. I have [Jd] and make it 500. When it gets back to UTG+1 he shoves which is what I want. He shows [Td]
Board [4s][Qs][Js][3h]
Awesome. The one time I didn't want to hit a set on the turn.

Stack size 7735 w/ blinds 50/100

Move ahead 6 hands to Hand #32. This is the one dumb play I made, but since nobody was folding to me anyway I don't see how it could have turned out any different.
Blinds 60/120 and UTG raises to 360. UTG+1 calls. I call in CO w/ [Qs].
[Qd][3h] Pot 1260
UTG pushes 1135, UTG+1 just calls and has (4350) behind. I'm troubled by UTG+1's call, but what am I gonna do here? Fold? No way! In retrospect I should have made a big re-raise pre-flop, but like I said...nobody was giving me any respect even though I wasn't really bluffing. I pushed and UTG+1 had the set. UTG had ATo.

Stack size 1620 w/ blinds 60/120

I did last a few round and even got my stack up to 2500 but as luck would have it I flopped trip Queens in the SB, but lost to CO who open-limped and had me out-kicked with better trips. SICK!

So this is how I took a TREMENDOUS stack and blew it off in a matter of a 32 hand span or about a half hour. So did I play some horrible big stack poker or was it a combination of bad luck, bad yet lucky players, and bad play?

[DonkiFornication]

[Xaston]

[MTPaid]

[Calaziar]

[Beavis68]

[MTPaid]

I actually tend to play a LOT tighter in tournaments than I do in cash games. At least NL games. Most of the time nobody is paying attention and I will be able to double up if I just wait for a solid hand. Even if they are paying attention I can still start stealing pots with my tight image once the antes kick in. However, when your playing with a big stack, everyone thinks your full of it whenever you bet or raise. If you look at the hands I posted, there are only 3 that I played that weren't solid raising hands
1 - [6s] where I flopped a big draw
2 - [6h] OTB where I was bluffed off the actual best hand after the turn and I easily laid down middle pair.
3 - [8s] which I merely limped out of position, saw a cheap flop, turned trips and happened to be against the BB who flopped the nut flush in a heads up pot.
I don't really think I got out of line anywhere. If anything I wasn't aggressive enough pre-flop with the [Qs] hand because I knew they wouldn't believe me. Most players just don't pay attention to your table image. They see two things:
1 - Stack size - He has a big stack, he must be bluffing.
2 - Position - He's in late position, he must be bluffing.