Tournament Rookie Needs Advice!

The largest local poker room here in Edmonton is having a 4-event tournament this weekend over Canadian Thanksgiving. Stud on Thursday night (no interest here), Omaha/8 on Friday, Limit HE on Saturday, and a NL HE event on Sunday. They don't have a ton of space in their banquet room, and I think the organizers are capping tournment entries at 20 tables.


I do not have much tournament experience, having only played in 2 or 3 small HE tournaments, but I am considering entering the Omaha/8 event Friday night. It's a $100 Buy-in, plus a maximum of one $100 Re-Buy. Not sure of the total purse, but I believe it is a $5000 guarantee.


Now, the local O/8 crowd is truly horrible in ring games, but I would expect a better calibre of player in town over the weekend for the tournament. For a new tournament player such as yours truly, would you have some general or specific advice for moi, if I am frisky enough to plop down a C-note to tee it up with these boys? I have a good understanding of O/8 for LL ring games, but tournaments are another matter.


Other than "Pick up good hands, and win pots" , anyone got any tournament tips? Thanks in advance, see you at Yellowhead this weekend, maybe.

I'm no expert on Omaha 8, but if you are lucky enough to progress you will need some short-handed / small-stack experience. The best place to get it is in the Paradise Poker single-table satellites, $10 and $20. You should be able to hold your own in these and hopefully pick up some cheap/free/profitable short-handed experience. I wish I had played more of these before my rather abortive Omaha 8 attempts at the Orleans Open :-).


Good luck,


Andy.

Fellow Canadian,


Here are a couple of tips. Early in the tournament, play your standard ring game strategy but beware of costly draws. That is if the starting stack size is big enough for you to be patient. If not, then you'll need to play faster but basically, stick to a solid ring game approach.


Second, when the blinds increase you'll need to be more aggressive and steal more, if you can. Put pressure on the blinds and attack the smaller stacks, if you are lucky enough to get a big stack, you can be more patient. Near the money, while everyone will be tight and holding on to get into the money, change gears again and attack well. Most players won't risk their stacks on marginal holdings, know that and adjust properly (lay down to aggression and steal the checkers).


In the money, you need to push and cross your fingers you get too many bad beats. Play well and think of the big picture: the trophy.


When you do win, send the 10% tip check to Nicolas Fradet, Montreal, Canada. ;-)


If you ever get short stack in the tournament, you need to pick a hand good enough to raise first-in, The optimal strategy is not to wait for the BB and have to put your stack in on a random hand. A hand like A3xx suited is plenty to move-in UTG when you have 2x the BB.


Good luck !


Nicolas Fradet (ThePrince)

Dunc,


You've played in the regular table games, so of course you know general play. The advice I'd give you is to play very tight in the early rounds. This sounds pretty basic I know, but it's very important. I only play Hold 'Em, but the principal should be the same: there are a lot of bad beats in the early rounds and a lot of bluffing/bad play. People will hit their gut-shot straights, their 2, 7 suited will turn into the nut flush when the Ace hits the board, Ace with a small kicker will turn into trips when the weak kicker hits twice! Just take this in stride and remember to play position! These bad players will go on tilt soon enough when the betting gets up there and their 2,2 doesn't improve.


Also, don't be afraid to check with your dealer if you have a question! The blinds usually go up every 15 minutes. Where I play they start at 15 sb, 30 bb. Sometimes you'll see a $100 tournament chip on the table and be confused if it's a raise or if the player is expecting change back -- (some players prefer to raise by just putting their chips on the table as I'm sure you know), feel free to ask (One time I started to muck my hand when I thought my BB had been raised and the two players next me started shouting "He didn't raise, he didn't raise, call time! Call time!"). Also, it always seems like the blinds go up when I'm in the middle of them, so when you go from having 60 in the BB then a deck change and all of a sudden they gone up to 40,80 and you have to put out a different amount, it can get a bit wiggy. Also, winning your first hand is a HUGE morale booster, so fold those marginal hands if you don't have good pot odds and they're a lot of players. And watch players carefully for tells! You'll spot some pretty easily and it will help you down the road.


Good luck!

Thanks, Andy. I hadn't thought of that. I have only played full table games on PP for cash, not in a tournament setting. Might be a little short of time now, but worth looking into for the future.

Late in the tournament at the final table or near the money get involved in a hand against a tight player that you have no business being involved in, you're sure to suck out and win a big pot. Seriously I like Nicolas's advice and late in the tournament there will be a lot of heads up and 3 way action which I think high hands go up in value and rough lows go up in value to escape sometimes. I've seen what I considered to be a good player take a big stack and get involved in a lot of pots later in the tournament when he was in position. I think his strategy was based on the fact that his starting hand wasn't that much worse heads up or short handed than what the others were playing.

One huge difference between Omaha8 and HE or stud is that the value of hands runs very close heads-up. So, if somebody raises all-in or close to it when you're the big blind, you usually need to play. If you're getting 3:1 or 2:1 for all the money (no betting on later rounds), you need to be holding quads or small trips in your hand to be a worse dog than the pot is offering.


Years ago I folded a pretty cheesy hand in the big blind, when the big blind was half my stack. It was something like Q964 with the 96 suited. If you run a simulation of this hand versus even a monster like AA23 double-suited, 2:1 is still enough for my call to be +EV.


It's rare for any hand to be more than a 3:2 favorite over any other hand when you don't factor in the postflop play.


Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Come out for Tuesday night poker at Baccarat, or hasn't Dave Ottoson invited you?

He's invited me, Jon, and I get all your emails with the post-mortems as well. When you got started in the summer, I was out of town all the time during the week, and I have been on the road much of September as well. Hopefully, I will be able to get down there soon. You are right, it would be a good way to get more tournament experience with a good crew.


Hope to see you guys soon.

I wouldn't be too concerned about going up against the "local tournament pros" (lol). Everyone here has given you good advice and you know the game better than most of the people you would be playing against. Its certainly worth the gamble on your part.


I don't think there's any specific tournament advice I can give you other than to be careful about letting your stack get too small. Once you get down to 5x the big blind, I think its time to start looking HARD for a hand to play. A lot of players in our tournaments try to get lucky early and build a stack. Sometimes they do. And don't hesitate to call people on their crap; there are a couple of tournament players around here who when they build a stack, will start calling for time all the time to slow the rounds down and increase the blind pressure on short stacks (I recall once when we were down to 5 people and I was in the BB, mid position raised all in for a small amount and SB called "time" and ruminated for 30 seconds before deciding his pocket kings were worth a call).


Unfortunately I'm otherwise occupied all weekend, so I'm going to only play the stud tournament (I've been practicing for two days, you see, on the .5/1 tables at paradise, so I figure I'm ready! (:)

I with respect disagree with you because in a tournament yes you need positive expectations but dont forget that in tourneys its more short term than long term. Its only a few hours of play not years of play, therefore going for 2:1 while you an underdog really depends on your position, your stack, the player your facing and many other factors you cant just use odds to justify your decision


Thankyou