100% Crapshoot

[Camps14]

This weekend I played in a live re-buy tourney that ended up as a final table, all-in crapshoot. This is how the tournament was set up.

$10 buy in, 72 players, $5 optional re-buy and add-on, 500 starting chips, tourney consists of 5 rounds only.

Here’s how the rounds were:
Round 1: 20 minutes long, Limit HE, re-buy if under starting 500, blinds start at 10/20, add-on period after the first round: optional 2 add-ons if under 500 in chips.
Round 2: 15 minutes long, switched to NLHE, blinds 20/40
Round 3: 15 minutes long, NLHE, blinds 50/100
Round 4: 15 minutes long, NLHE, blinds 100/200
Round 5: 15 minutes long, NLHE, blinds 200/400, at the end of the 15 minute round the chips were counted and the tournament was over, no matter how many people left. There were 6 places paid.

Pay-outs: (approximate)
1st – $455
2nd – $275
3rd – $125
4th – $100
5th – $ 80
6th – $63

To make a long story short I ended up at the final table which was 11 people, with about 4 minutes left in the 5th round. There were about 3 very short stack and 3 very large stacks. I was probably 7th in chips, so I knew that I either needed a few people to get knocked out or to win a pot before the time ran out to even place in the money. I only had $15 invested into the tournament because I didn’t have to re-buy. Just curious on what other people’s strategy would be here.

[Ryner]

My strategy would be to hear about a format that dumb, then decide not to play.

[Camps14]

Yes, I understand this is a very ridiculous tounament to play in, but let me explain why I did. Being that I am only 19, I have two choices of casinos to play in. One that doesn't offer any tounaments, and one that offers them very infrequently. Because I had driven 3 hours to get to this particular casino to play poker, and the tounament that they were offering would take up every table in the poker room (that means no live games until tables free up, and then not a lot of choice on which game to play) I decided to fork up the 10 to play in a tounament that, who knows I could win more at then playing live for the hour and 20 minutes. I really didn't feel like driving 3 hours, then waiting an additional 2 or 3 hours to play a live game that would be chosen by the majority.

So no it wasn't the best tournament I've played, but I just wanted to know if other people were in this situation what their strategy would be. Thanks for your imput though.

[37offsuit]

If you're certain of the totals (you in 7th) then yes, you have to pick one of your next few hands to make a move. What I would probably do is hope that I got into a situation where I could isolate a small stack that was going all in where I had semi decent cards early, rather than late in the 4 minutes. That means some gamble, but you can't win here without gambling. If you hit and move up a enough to limp into the money, I'd do that, and probably stall as much as possible on my hands to give me a better chance.

If the small stack doubles up through you and now you're in worse shape than before, I'd play it the same way I'd play short stacked with the blinds coming that will knock me out. Instead of blinds, it's the clock that will do you in, but I'd play it the same way. I wouldn't play below average cards until the last hand before time expires, and I'd push on that last hand regardless of what I got unless a very unique situation occured before that (like say a bunch of people got all in and now you were just about guaranteed a spot unless two or more people split the pot).

A side note, you should have taken the rebuy at the beginning, starting with t1000 for half the original cost of chips. If they didn't allow that, I'd limp/fold the first opportunity in the limit portion to get under the t500 and rebuy then.