Okay, so last night I played at the Lake Elsinore Card Room for their weekly $65 dollar Mini-Deepstack tournament. It’s a great structure for a low buy-in tournament, as players start out with 10K in chips at 25/50 for Level one, with each level being 30 Minutes long (post 3rd level, its 25 mins long). Typically, the field is about 50-65 people with usually a 2500-3K guarantee…sometimes more, sometimes less. The tournament does get shallow quickly once you get past level 6 as blinds go to 200/400 then to 400/800 then 500/1000 and so on. So, in general, it’s great practice for a low buy in event, and I thoroughly enjoy working on my postflop play with these deepstacks. I’ve won this tournament a few times and am usually pretty good at adjusting to various levels of skill, from poor to advanced.

However, last night was a little different. I was sat at a table with a group of players I didn’t recognize. I’m usually one of the youngest players in the field at 27, with a few twentysomethings sprinkled in the field. At this particular table, however, I was the youngest but definitely not the most aggressive haha. In general, I play a pretty LAG style, but when the cards were dealt, I knew the night would be different.

Right out the gate, a middle aged man opens to 350 UTG at the 25/50 level and gets 3-bet in the hijack by a younger Asian lady with sunglasses to 2500. I was a little surprised by the 7X open raise but I was even more surprised by the 7X 3-bet of the open. I figured this was a one time thing, as this happens from time to time in live play, but for the rest of the next two levels, the table started adopting this short stack monstrosity. That particular hand above ended up with the Asian lady winning with KJo against the open raiser’s 99’s with a K on the turn (money went all in at the turn).

For the rest of the next two levels, the smallest open I saw was 3x (me) which would quickly get 3 bet 10xBB plus…most of the time the open raises were 9x from the rest of the opponents.

I understand that I had to play my value hands aggressively and tighten up to this dynamic, but overall it wasn’t fun. I didn’t play many hands at all, and I finally busted in only the second level, after 3 bet jamming 10’s in the hijack against a 1500 UTG chip open at the 50/100 level (big for this guy, because typically he’d open 9x). He was the chip leader in the hand before, but lost an all-in pot when he lost half his stack after calling an all-in push preflop with JJ’s to a guy who was tilting. The tilter open jammed 94o folded to him in the SB with the chip leader calling the jam. guy flops a full house with a 944 board, and needless to say, the guy with JJs was steaming. So when he opens to 1500 in the next hand, I take it as a steam raise, and with me having 8200 behind, I don’t feel like it’s optimal to just call with 10’s in late position, but I would like to hear your thoughts on the optimal way to adjust.

Results of my bustout hand: So I jam and he calls with AQo. A in the window and gg. Not a fun game of poker, but nonetheless it was what it was.

Sounds ridiculous, but can you help me with how to adjust to this kinda table?