Live Tournament Questions

[TheMetetron]

So a local casino has a no-limit hold'em tournament they run three days a week. I haven't played in it for months, but thought I'd give it a try today. The only thing I noticed during the tournament was that the way it was set-up made it a crapshoot in my opinion.

First of all, the buy-in was $7+3 (seems like a HUGE rake, this alone makes me not want to play there in the future) for t500 checks. The blinds start at 25-50, 11 handed tables, 4 tables. The rebuys/blinds are listed below (to the best of my recollection).

Level 1 - 25/50 - 15 min - $5 rebuys for t500
Level 2 - 50/100 - 15 min - $5 rebuys for t1000
Level 3 - 100/200 - 15 min - $10 rebuys for t2000

15 MINUTE BREAK
$20 add-on for t5000

Level 4 - 300/500 - 10 min
Level 5 - 500/1000 - 10 min
Level 6 - 1000/2000 - 10 min
Level 7 - 2000/4000 - 10 min
Level 8 - 5000/10000 - 10 min
Level 9 - 10000/20000 - 10 min
Level 10 - 20000/40000 - 10 min
Level 11 - 30000/60000 - 10 min
Level 12 - 40000/80000

First thing is the rebuys look really screwed and the people playing in this tournament are for the most part very loose-passive. There isn't much I feel you can do in the first 3 levels, as the blind increase after the break makes practically everything you earned before pretty useless. I also can't figure out if the house takes a cut of the rebuys, but knowing them I'm sure they do.

Anyways, on to my particular experience today. I catch a whole bunch of zero cards, make one bad bluff (tried to bluff too many people), and went all-in on the flop another time with the best hand and got rivered by a backdoor flush.

In all, I think I spent about $70 with the add-on. Anyways, I think the one big mistake I made came in the following hand.

Approximately 25-28 players left in the tournament. Blinds are t2000/t4000 and the would be small blind just busted out leaving one t4000 big blind and putting me UTG. My table is the smallest with 7 players and I get dealt A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 7 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif. My stack size is only t7000. The big blind has the same stack as me, and the rest of the table is about t1200-t2500. For some reason, I fold here and I can't for the life of me figure out why. This is a case where I definitely should've gone all-in IMO since I'm going to have to call next hand if someone does go all-in. To add insult to injury, everyone folds to the big blind, who flips over 7 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif and laughs his way into another rotation.

The next hand, the same guy is in the small blind, everyone folds to him, and he raises me all in and realizing I'm pot committed call with Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif 8 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. I'm really happy when he flips over J /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 6 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif and I realize I'm actually a slight favorite.

The flop comes J /images/graemlins/club.gif 8 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 2 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

Turn is a blank and river is another J. Out of the tournament.

Anyways, besides my obvious A7 suited mistake UTG, I think I played the tournament pretty well. You have to also remember that I played this tournament after a 16 hour straight ring game (yeah big mistake, I know). Anyways, this was a test to see how I liked this tournament and I think I've discovered I really dislike the structure and I doubt I'll be playing again in the future. I'll stick to online sit n gos and MTT for my tournament needs in the future I think.

[The4thFilm]

Save your money and buy a lottery ticket, those blinds levels are a joke.

[TheMetetron]

Yeah, that was my thinking after buying in and realizing I only started with 10 big blinds... But I do have to admit the casino makes a killing on the people who play it.

[tek]

The blinds look ok, but I avoid rebuy tournaments. Those just favor loose fish. At the card club I go to (Canterbury Park 20 miles south of Minneapolis) they have dropped rebuys for almost two years now. Hopefully that will become a widespread trend.

[TheMetetron]

The blinds look okay? When the rebuys actually stop and everyone stops going all-in with everything under the sun, the blinds go up ridiculously high after every ten minutes. That's about 5-6 hands with the slow ass dealers this place has, maybe 8-9 hands with the few quick dealers. You just really can't do much more than throw it all in.

On the other hand, I love this place for limit ring games. These guys are loose-passive in the truest sense of the word and will pay off your hands like they aren't playing with real money.

Rebuy tournaments are really not my thing either. In fact, this is the only tournament I ever entered that wasn't a freezeout.

[LethalRose]

if the blind structure favors your play go for it..however i think youd be better off going to work or betting on horse's.

[tek]

[ QUOTE ]
The blinds look okay? When the rebuys actually stop and everyone stops going all-in with everything under the sun, the blinds go up ridiculously high after every ten minutes. That's about 5-6 hands with the slow ass dealers this place has, maybe 8-9 hands with the few quick dealers. You just really can't do much more than throw it all in.


[/ QUOTE ]

The levels look ok. But you are right the time limit at each level sucks. 15 minutes should be the minimum at each level...