Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 7371
Many congratulations on another top twenty finish and a nice return on your investment. I don't think i would have called 2 all-ins with just Ace Eight, but sometimes you feel lucky and just have trust your instincts
Joined: Mar '14
Location: Japan
Age: 49 (M)
Posts: 8946
Congratulations, TheIrish77, for your good result in the $400 guaranteed tournament on PokerStars. Sometimes you need to get lucky a few times to make a deep run in MTTs. Wishing you the best things in your future to come.
Edited by Tony_MON7ANA (01 March 2017 @ 13:36 GMT)
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
Yea, you got lucky indeed there with the A8, but after all this game cant be played if you are not lucky. It was another great finish for you, outplaying hundreds of players once more. Better luck next time.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Nice one, time to move up the stakes! It must be frustrating to play for hours only to cash for less than a hundred bucks! It seems like you have some MTT talent, take it to a higher level!
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Posted by Mober: Yea, you got lucky indeed there with the A8, but after all this game cant be played if you are not lucky.
Absolutely; playing well you definitely need luck in an MTT - sometimes even playing well, with your range beating your opponents range, the individual hands may not be so good. Like you may have K K and crush your opponents range, only to get in in against A A; then you need to be very lucky to spike a K for the win.
And even if you get in 3 hands in a row as a favourite, let's say in each hand you hare the 70% favourite to win - statistically you're more likely to bust on one of those hands, than win all 3.
So yes - even playing well, you need quite a lot of luck to win the MTT.
However - with the A8, that was definitely a fold. There's no way you're ahead of the villains ranges after a 3-bet shove followed by a cold 4-bet over-shove. You need to lay it down.
In fact, consider not opening in that spot with A8, it's a bit too weak and if your opponents shove (exactly like what happened) then it puts you in a terrible position, where you either need to fold (correct) or call and be behind your opponents range (bad call).
You need to be more aware of your opponents stack sizes, if they had bigger stacks, then opening A8suited in this spot may become profitable. But you need to remember, you are out of position vs those still to act behind you AND worse still, in this case they each had around 10bb - which is a perfect amount to 3bet shove against an open.
Whereas if your opponents were quite a bit deeper, then they wouldn't have the right stack size to shove over you, which means they're more likely to call- leaving you able to actually play a flop.
That said - if they were deeper and holding strong hands and they 3BET your open with A8s, you still need to fold, calling a 3Bet with only A8s out of position is definitely not profitable in the long run.
You probably need to tighten your range a bit when you're opening from those early positions. Also - definitely take more notice of opponent stack sizes, as well as your own, think about how they're likely to play certain hands and how that will effect your decisions/choices.
Stack sizes should have an incredible influence on the hands you choose to play and how you play them.
Anyway - congrats on the deep run, obviously you're doing some things right.
Edited by jessthehuman (02 March 2017 @ 12:56 GMT)
Joined: Feb '13
Location: Canada
Age: 46 (M)
Posts: 1204
Thanks for the great responses everyone.
@ jessthehuman - Thanks mate I'll definitely take what you said to heart. all makes way too much sense to not be proper poker strategy.
I think that's one of my flaws I don't really study the game and just play on a feel of how things are going. I know the math well enough to make decisions easier but I think positioning is a real weakness and understanding when I should be In a hand and when not to. I play alot of hands and probably put myself into bad spots when not necessary.
Honestly getting chips is never an issue for me. At some point in a MTT i'm constantly picking up large stacks of chips and staying around the top end of tournaments for long runs. I just seem to start playing looser hands the closer we get to final few tables when I should probably be tightening everything up and playing better hands.
Posted by Mober: Yea, you got lucky indeed there with the A8, but after all this game cant be played if you are not lucky. It was another great finish for you, outplaying hundreds of players once more. Better luck next time.
You got that one right, there is no game without luck factoring in time to time. Congrats irish, next time you won't stop to the top3.
Obviously A8 type of hands are indeed tricky to play in MTTs. They can make you win big or they can be your downfall bigtime. Same thing for ace rags. The problem with these hands is that you put yourself in a tough situation everytime anyone decides to play back at you. And even if you make the correct hero call you're not going to be a big favorite unless the guy has an ace rag. NLHE is a polarizing game, that's why you mostly see nits and donks. But the winning players are actually balanced and able to switch gear when they need to.
But yeah sometimes you have a solid image then get switched to a new table and start losing every hand. MTTs can be brutal.
Joined: Aug '10
Location: Germany
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 2219
Gratz for another good tourney cash! It seems that you find your favorite game in tourneys with so many itm places and final tables in the last time. It was a good return of investment, but you need a lot of time for these games and good skills. GL for your next games
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by TheMachineQC: Obviously A8 type of hands are indeed tricky to play in MTTs. They can make you win big or they can be your downfall bigtime. Same thing for ace rags. The problem with these hands is that you put yourself in a tough situation everytime anyone decides to play back at you. And even if you make the correct hero call you're not going to be a big favorite unless the guy has an ace rag. NLHE is a polarizing game, that's why you mostly see nits and donks. But the winning players are actually balanced and able to switch gear when they need to.
But yeah sometimes you have a solid image then get switched to a new table and start losing every hand. MTTs can be brutal.
In reality - you are better off playing A-2, A-3, A-4 or A-5 than A 6 through 9. Because with the low aces you can make the wheel and obviously with A10+ you can make the nut straight and you also end up with much better kickers and stronger 2nd pairs.
Basically - you nee to really think about situations where you play A 6-9, basically never OOP, never early position, don't call raises, just - basically - don't overvalue these hands, cause they lead to trouble. The main problem is - even though an ace is strong, if you hit your ace, you have no idea if you are out-kicked. Which is a much bigger problem than most people realise.
A lot of people just think - oh yeah, it means sometimes I will lose to a better ace.
Sure - that is true. But the actual real problem with those hands is that when you ARE ahead (when you pair of aces is good) - you have absolutely no way of knowing if your opponent has a better ace, so you end up playing the hand really conservatively.
Which means two things happen with shitty ace hands
1) If someone has a better ace, you lose 2) If your ace is good, you make almost no value from the hand, because you are scared of a better ace.
When you combine these two factors, it is easy to see just how worthless these aces are.
Consider only playing them if they are suited - as you can make a nut flush. Or if you're short-stacked and shoving (in which case (2) no longer applies because the chips are going in preflop).
With the lower aces that make make the low straight (Wheel) - I'd also consider only playing these if they are suited, even with the straight possibilities, they're really not a strong hand for the same reason as the other shitty aces.
There's always exceptions to every rule and strategy. This is just a rough guide and a thought exercise really.
you will win it for sure next time 
