Joined: Oct '09
Location: India
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 80
hello everyone. this is distress call. please try n help out. ive been playing a lot of tournaments lately. micro stakes and freerolls. the good news is that i manage to get "in the money" easily. no troubles there. that happens about 92% of the times. the bad news is that later in the tournament my play goes for a toss and i lose my position and chipstack. why does this happen... what should be a suitable strategy of play when the tourney is down to only a few players remaining. pls help
Joined: Oct '08
Location: Estonia
Age: 48 (M)
Posts: 445
Search in forums for MTT. One thing is for sure, if bubble bursts, its kinda relief and lots of short and even midstacks start to play kamikaze style, but the real game is actually just beginning. I personally dont like play MTT-s anymore, because i get tired and after making to the money i start to go allinn with avarage hand.
First things first if you are cashing 92% of the time then you have nothing to complain about. That should be profitable in and of itself.
Secondly to win in a MTT there are many things you can do. First off is to set yourself up for a good situation, if you want to play a MTT to win it you often have to play a different way than if you want to just cash, specially leading up to the bubble. At this point you can often steal quite profitably for a number of reasons, most players tighten up, the blinds are usually large compared to stack sizes and antes have often been introduced at this point. The downside is you can also be kicked without cashing at all with a looser strategy at this point.
If you are simply having difficult with short handed tables then the easiest way to improve your tournaments is imo to play at short handed and specifically heads up ring tables. Early tournament play is often succesful with simple strict starting hand guides and playing solid top pair poker. Once you are short handed you have to be comfortable playing a wider range of hands and know when your second and third pairs are worth calling.
Lastly is luck. In any tournament you are challenging large fields of players, and in general the majority of them are at least halfway decent. So unless you are a brain surgeon of poker you need some luck and persistance to truly beat out a large field
Joined: May '08
Location: Germany
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 6786
You have to up the aggression level if fewer players are at the table. Maybe you lose the focus if you made it into the money, so try to keep your concentration.
Joined: Apr '10
Location: Finland
Age: 50 (M)
Posts: 323
Posted by loonardog: the good news is that i manage to get "in the money" easily. no troubles there. that happens about 92% of the times.
Oh my god! If you finnish 92% of your toureys in the money you shouldn´t be complaining at all!!! But if you really are finishing that good I can give one tip for that late section of the tournament: You have to be more aggressive when it comes down with only couple of players remaining! Often they want to get better position at the finish and they start to play really passive cause they are afraid of losing it all. Steal those blinds as often as possible
Joined: Jun '09
Location: Germany
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 18
Posted by SonFelix:
Posted by loonardog: the good news is that i manage to get "in the money" easily. no troubles there. that happens about 92% of the times.
Oh my god! If you finnish 92% of your toureys in the money you shouldn't be complaining at all!!! But if you really are finishing that good I can give one tip for that late section of the tournament: You have to be more aggressive when it comes down with only couple of players remaining! Often they want to get better position at the finish and they start to play really passive cause they are afraid of losing it all. Steal those blinds as often as possible
what a focking joke - SonFelix is a german player - go to jail name thief
Learning to play looser poker is very hard, this is the reason that most poker books and sources will start off teaching very simple tight poker.
The only way to learn it is to play a huge number of hands, and always think about the hands afterwards, critique your own play constantly and before to long you will find yourself with a better feel for when you can get away playing a looser game.
Basically you want to take into account how many big blinds you have left and using this to gauge what sort of poker you want to play. Personally with <10 BB the only raise i ever make is all in. If a hand is good enough to play then all in is the way to play it. Exactly what is good enough to play becomes very wide as well. with <10 bb if i get to open from the button i will shove with any ace, any 2 picture cards, most likely any pair.
Between 10 and 20 BB i will only play truly premium hands or very opportune looking position plays. between 20 and 40 BB my selection will be a bit wider again, and i will be happy to raise and continuation bet without feeling attachment to the hand.
If i have more than 40 BB and it is late in a tournament i am usually playing a very wide selection of hands, you have built yourself a buffer so it will be almost impossible to put yourself into a bad situation with one hand. This leaves you free to grow a massive stack size. One steal will usually get you 2.5 BB once antes are introduced. Do this more than once around the table and your stack will slowly grow. Also if a short stack reraises you you can often call without huge amounts of danger to your stack. In general i will call someone with 10 BB who reraises me with as little as 9T. This is because you will usually be calling 7.5 BB to win 22.5 BB. You only need to be better than 33% to make this the right call and you can afford to lose and try again.
Joined: Oct '09
Location: India
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 80
Basically you want to take into account how many big blinds you have left and using this to gauge what sort of poker you want to play. Personally with <10 BB the only raise i ever make is all in. If a hand is good enough to play then all in is the way to play it. Exactly what is good enough to play becomes very wide as well. with <10 bb if i get to open from the button i will shove with any ace, any 2 picture cards, most likely any pair.
Between 10 and 20 BB i will only play truly premium hands or very opportune looking position plays. between 20 and 40 BB my selection will be a bit wider again, and i will be happy to raise and continuation bet without feeling attachment to the hand.
If i have more than 40 BB and it is late in a tournament i am usually playing a very wide selection of hands, you have built yourself a buffer so it will be almost impossible to put yourself into a bad situation with one hand. This leaves you free to grow a massive stack size. One steal will usually get you 2.5 BB once antes are introduced. Do this more than once around the table and your stack will slowly grow. Also if a short stack reraises you you can often call without huge amounts of danger to your stack. In general i will call someone with 10 BB who reraises me with as little as 9T. This is because you will usually be calling 7.5 BB to win 22.5 BB. You only need to be better than 33% to make this the right call and you can afford to lose and try again.
this really helped. thanks SCDossett. cheerios man! usually what i have observed is that i play tight in the beginning. that helps me build a GOOD stack. but if i lose a chunk of my stack in a stupid move, i go on tilt. bad, i know. i yet have to master my tilt. just donno how to do that.
