Five Diamond World Poker Classic

[luvrhino]

I'll be playing in the Five Diamond Poker Classic in a few weeks cuz i somehow won this (http://www.empirepoker.com/news/TVstar.html). My opening strategy will be to be a tightass. This shouldn't be hard, since i usually play SnGs and this is what i do there.

My question is how maniacal are these players, usually?

In SnGs, someone can be counted on getting suicidal and going all-in on second pair or a pocket pair over second pair. They can just go to another SnG to lose more money. Here, there's only one tournament, so i figure that people will be more conservative here. I've never done a WPT event (and i've only been playing since late July) so i don't know what it's like.

The blind/ante structure the first day is very small: (Ante/SB/BB) $0/$50/$100, $0/$100/$200, $25/$100/$200, $50/$200/$400, and $75/$300/$600 when everyone starts with $30,000. Each level lasts 90 minutes.

I've never even done an ante before, so this'll be new. I take it that with an ante i should be just a little more aggressive?

Anyway, my goal is to just cash. The entry fee ($15.3K) is a lot of money to me. They pay 27 places up to 299 players, 50 for 300-399. I won't be one of the better there, so i'll go all-in early with KK and AA, but not QQ. This may change after i get reads on my opps.

[BiNgOsHaDo]

Just a quick reply here, with antes, it pays to be a little more aggressive pre-flop because the blinds you will steal are significantly larger than they would be if there were no antes, so you should try and take advantage of that, but also realize that the better opponents you are up against will be doing the same. ANd you shouldn't try to play any different than you normally do. If skill is what got you into the tournament, then you should rely on it, not try and change your style.
-BiNg

[luvrhino]

I'm going to change my style a little bit. The people i beat to get in this tourney were idiots. I won't be so lucky here. Also, i was fortunate enough to showdown a monster hand in the satellite after only min-betting (because i wanted to keep others in the pot). This allowed me to bluff by min-betting, which was cheaper when caught.

I won't likely be min-betting the same way at the FDWPC. My pre-Flop raises will likely be 3 x Big Blind. I will also protect my hand more than i did in the satellite. I got lucky, i think, not to be drawn out more than i did after small-betting Top Pair.

[MVicuna]

Hi,

I don't know what you mean by betting small, but "small-ball" seems to be the new vogue style for a lot of the 'pros'. i.e. Checking the flop to keep the pots small after raising preflop.

You should play to have fun. You won a nice vacation regardless of the outcome of the event. Take some of your BR and play the ring games. It should be a blast.

Congrats,
MarkV.

[Frenchie]

I won one of these too, so we might get to meet. My plan is about the same, be relatively tight in the first 2 or 3 level but I think that we really need to adjust to whatever the table is doing, just like in the online tourney.