Tripled Up on the 5th Hand of $100+9 MTT

[Lloyd]

Actually, more than that. I'm up to 3415 after the 5th hand when I floped a full house and had a couple of fools overplay trips and a flush draw.

Now what? How would you adjust your strategy when you have 230 times the BB? Obviously you can limp a lot more and see if you can flop some monsters cheaply. But how else can you take advantage of being in this unique situation at the beggining of a tourney?

BTW, I probably have jinxed myself and will be busting out soon but I think the strategy discussion is still helpful.

[Firefly]

Actually I don't adjust my strategy much at all. I might be more likely to see flops in position or call raises from the BB. But to open up too much always seems to put me in a dangerous situation where I lose my chips. If you feel solid in your post flop play you can choose to see more flops but it's amazing to see how quickly those chips can bleed away sometimes. Play solid and continue to add chips to your stack.

[Lloyd]

Just picked up this hand:

***** Hand History for Game 1502909333 *****
NL Hold'em Trny:9055193 Level:3 Blinds (15/30) - Friday, January 28, 00:33:23 EDT 2005
Table Multi-Table(225723) Table #2 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: cmoltisanti ( $1805 )
Seat 2: Cool_Tricks ( $1700 )
Seat 3: dARTofpoker ( $1980 )
Seat 5: Magic_Pig ( $3610 )
Seat 6: mummy2303 ( $550 )
Seat 10: JBullmastiff ( $700 )
Seat 4: ezwei ( $767 )
Seat 7: jagshemesh ( $1140 )
Trny:9055193 Level:3
Blinds (15/30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Magic_Pig [ Th Kh ]
jagshemesh folds.
JBullmastiff calls [30].
cmoltisanti folds.
Cool_Tricks folds.
dARTofpoker folds.
ezwei calls [30].
Magic_Pig calls [15].
mummy2303 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qh, Jh, Ah ]
Magic_Pig checks.
mummy2303 folds.
JBullmastiff bets [275].
ezwei folds.
Magic_Pig calls [275].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
ligal0135 has joined the table.
Player ligal0135 has been moved from Multi-Table(225723) Table #23 table
Magic_Pig checks.
JBullmastiff is all-In [395]
Magic_Pig calls [395].
** Dealing River ** [ 5h ]
Magic_Pig shows [ Th, Kh ] Royal Flush.
JBullmastiff shows [ Jd, Ac ] two pairs, aces and jacks.
Player JBullmastiff finished in 217 place
Magic_Pig wins 1460 chips from the main pot with Royal Flush.
JBullmastiff has left the table.

[Chuckster]

WOW! Nice!!!

Hope you can keep it up

[Pete]

dangggggg what a flop

Nice! Too bad it was not on the final table. Now, tell us. You made it to the final table. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[tiger7210]

NICE!!!!!!!!! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[SossMan]

I'm glad you defended your SB.

[KingMedicine]

having 3-4xs everyone else in a tourney early i think you have to see a TON of flops. in the few cases ive been in this situation, ill limp with a lot of suited connectors...Axs...any pocket pair...all over the place really. of course the key is to not put more chips in when you dont have the nuts or nut draws. but hell, if you can hit some nut straight/flushes (or a royal!) then its worth limping 10-20 times to do it. also, more than ever, keep track of the major idiot at your table and enter as many pots as you can with him with almost any two. those players have a knack for giving their chips away and i'd be entering any pot i could with them in it.
also, i see no point at all in raising any non-made hand preflop (i.e. AKs) early on when you have a major stack. limp, hit the flop and go for the kill. picking up 75 in blinds isnt going to matter much, but hit a flop hard and you can take someone else's stack.

[DonButtons]

It allows you to see more pots, but just dont bleed away your chips (which I doubt you will do).

But when I have a big stack in tournaments under $100 on party poker, in levels 1, 2 and 3, I like to see a lot of flops, basically looking for trips, two pairs, straights, flushes, etc..But beginning in level 4, you should start tightening up again. As you prob. only have 35x-40x BB and this is the stage where its a must for a big stack to switch gears.

Now you have around double the average stack, and can wait for a nice hand or too. With a 2x the avg stack, if you go for a blind steal, dont commit to much of you chips to the pot, b/c this is a easy way to bleed away your chips. With a lot of desperate 1000 stacks at this point, your goal should to be waiting for a hand to bust a couple of these short stacks with pocket pairs and hands like AK.

[The Student]

Congrats on your early big stack and that nicely flopped royal. I was playing in a $20 MTT last night and saw this happen on the first hand (sorry, I don't have a HH for it):
MP1 standard pre-flop raise, MP2 re-raise to about 9xBB, Big blind and MP1 both call. Flop comes 8/9/4 mixed suits, BB goes all-in (huge overbet)and both MP1 and MP2 call! It turns out that the BB had cowboys, MP1 had flopped a set of 8s and MP2 had flopped a set of 9s. But the turn was a king to restore order to the world and give us set over set over set. Anyways, the BB had now tripled up and basically did what everyone has already suggested - didn't get super aggressive pre-flop, but did limp into a lot of pots with speculative hands (like suited aces) to see if he could catch a good flop or draw. Saw him at the final table later, so it must have worked for him.

hope you managed to hold on to your stack,

ts-