{"id":1114377,"date":"2020-11-02T05:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T05:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.pokercoaching.com\/?p=1114377"},"modified":"2025-12-29T14:40:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T14:40:39","slug":"what-to-do-when-you-are-card-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pokercoaching.com\/blog\/what-to-do-when-you-are-card-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"What To Do When You Are Absolutely Card Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A question I often get asked by recreational players is how do we build a stack when the card is dead and can’t make any of the best poker hands<\/a>? This is always one of the weirdest questions for me to answer because I feel that the person already knows the answer to this question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real question should be, \u201cHow do we not lose more chips when we are card dead.\u201d The original question asked, in my opinion, leans more towards a leak in the discipline of the player\u2019s mental game. Today we will discuss ranges and why we play them, how we limit lost chips during a period of bad cards, and also the mental side of this question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concentrating On Your Ranges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once you move past the basics of poker<\/a>, the next step in the logical progression of a player is to begin to think in the form of ranges<\/a>. Your preflop range is all of the hands that you deem profitable to play from any given position<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From UTG 9-handed with ants, I tend to play about 17% of hands. This is roughly 55+, ATo+ A2s+, KQo+, 87s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+ and T9s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel hands worse than these are worth 0 chips or -EV to play. Let\u2019s say that I have folded for 30 straight hands and am considering raising wider because I have a tight image and want to steal the blinds. I am now choosing to raise a hand on the assumption that other players will play tighter against me because I haven\u2019t raised a hand in 30 hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We choose to play a tight range from the early position (and the above range is already a bit loose) because there are still eight players left to act that we have no information on. These are all the hands that we deem profitable to raise from this (lack of) information. If there were other hands that I thought were profitable, I would already raise them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point I am trying to make is the goal is to not lose more chips than you need to when card dead, not try to build a stack when you have junk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you find yourself card dead, you need to stick to your ranges based on your opponents and not force the issue. <\/div>