live weekly tournament I cannot beat.

[trumpman84]

There is this live Saturday tournament I go to that has anywhere from 10-20 players on one or two tables. With the exception of maybe 2-3 good players and maybe 3-4 decent ones, the rest of the players are terrible, calling preflop all-ins with stuff like J9o, JTo and K9o. While, I'm a decent tournament player, I do horribly at this tournament, not finishing in the money in 5 tries.

I just cannot win tournaments when people don't know when to ditch a hand and when you almost can never steal blinds if the big blind picks up a halfway decent hand. With the blinds at 250/500, and my stack at 5750 (we start with 7500), I moved all-in from the button with AJo just wanting to pick up the blinds and got called by the joker in the big blind with K9 soooooted. I only went all-in here because the big blind was the loosest player I'd ever seen...I'd only seen him lay down maybe 10% of his hands preflop...all the rest he'd called 2k raises with to see the flop with stuff like Q8o and J9o..so I knew I'd be either called by a worse hand, or god forbid, he lay it down, and I didn't have enough chips to try to steal his blind with a standard raise, then let him catch when I know I had a better hand than he did. So, you'd think an all in for 1/3 of his chips would be enough.

I know, I know..you want to be called by worse hands...well, when I'm a 65% favorite with all my chips on the line just 2 or 3 times in a tournament, I'm an underdog to stay alive.

How is it possible to beat this tournament full of fish and people who barely understand basic concepts of the game?

[rjb03]

Is this post a joke? Sounds like it.

[trumpman84]

Maybe I'm just running bad right now, but I'd seriously like some advice on how to beat a tournament where you can't steal many (if any) blinds and will probably always have to show down the best hand in a multi-way pot to win. Maybe I'm just frustrated because I know these guys will pay me off but I'm just not hitting cards right now..I don't know.

[Cry Me A River]

Seriously?

1 - Don't bluff
2 - Only steal against smaller stacks (but avoid stacks which are so small they are pot commited unless they're small enough that they can't hurt you)
3 - If the whole table is limping every hand (ie early in the tournament), then lower your limping standards as well as your PF raising standards ie: raise with any ace you would normally limp with, particularly in LP. Play suited aces, suited kings, suited connectors, suited gap connectors and low pockets from any position if you can see the flop cheaply (and there are lots of callers) but get ready to bail if the flop doesn't hit you. Use these hands to build your stack in the early and middle going so you don't get desperate with the blinds later.
4 - Trap, trap, trap! You should be able to extract a lot of chips anytime you know you're ahead. But at the same time, beware of traps yourself - Just because they suck doesn't mean they can't have a hand!
5 - Don't overestimate the value of positional raises against a table full of LAGs - If you're on the button and it gets checked around to you but the flop missed you and there are 5 in the hand a bet here is probably not going to get you the pot unless the flop is really scary and it missed everyone completely. So don't waste chips betting out unless you can win a high-card or low-pair showdown.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

I know, I know..you want to be called by worse hands...well, when I'm a 65% favorite with all my chips on the line just 2 or 3 times in a tournament, I'm an underdog to stay alive.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the biggest fallacies out there. If you double through, your chances of the next confrontation being for all your chips are much lower. Therefore this whole "X^N < 0.5 and therefore I'm underdog to stay alive" line of analysis is just wrong.

This line of thinking applies if you're very short stacked and need to double through several times to even get an average stack. But the only lesson there is: sucks to be a shortstack. That doesn't mean you should pass on your 60/40s.

eastbay

[mackthefork]

Pushing the AJo into a loose calling station is exactly the sort of move that will get you money in those tournaments in the long run, 5 is nothing btw. Push hands that are likely to be best late when the blinds are worth stealing you will do fine, and don't play too tight.

Regards Mack