Question for successful mtt players

[The_Model]

Just to give you some background, I've been playing about a year and have read HOH 1 and 2 which greatly shaped how I play.

Anyway. I'm running into the same problems in MTTs. I play on stars and usually without fail I find myself getting shortstacked about 90 minites into a tournament, for me to get to the money it seems I have to get lucky and double up several times. I guess what I am wondering is what kind of aggression is necessary to build a stack and maintain it. (Some examples would help). Should I bet willing to call big bets and go all in with small pairs assuming they have high cards and I'm a small favorite. I know a big thing is big stealing but I fell like stealing is rgat when it works and can really hurt your stack if you miss a steal or if it gets called and your opponent check raises the flop when you bet based on position. Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.

[flopking]

HoH advocates a conservative style of play that ensures you won't be playing more than 20% of your hands unless you're on a rush... regardless, you have to make sure you bet each hand for maximum value so that you have as many chips to work with...

When the blinds are less than 25/50 don't bother raising with anything other than AA/KK/QQ so check out flops with suited connectors, small pairs, etc and hope to hit a monster and double up...

Once blinds get big, target weak-tight players who limp from all positions and raise, raise, raise them with any two whenever the opportunity presents itself...

Anyway, finishing ITM requires a combination of luck/skill, so don't worry if you show mixed results over the short term. Solid play in low buy-in MTTs will almost always yield a profit in the long run...

[sekrah]

Just my guess based upon my experience.

If you are routinely getting short-stacked within 90 minutes, I think you are playing too many hands. Play premiums and play them aggressively. Don't make loose calls preflop, raise more to narrow the field down.. get heads up and try to steal the pot if you miss.


Just a few ideas.. Slowly getting whittled down sounds like your calling alot of preflop raises with K-10, K-J, J-Q, Ace-Baby, etc.. These are all junk, discard them from your arsenal.. Save your chips for the big battles.

I would read the Darse tournament primer

http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/Papers/no-limit-tnmt-primer.html

Do not throw out what you have learned, but consider how to adapt it to the tournament style.

Darse suggests a tight aggressive style - meaning you are selective about which hands you play, but you play them aggressively. Essentially, I take that to mean that basically, the thing you should be doing least is calling - you should be folding A LOT of hands, but those hands you stay in on, you should be raising by a significant amount.

[ QUOTE ]
HoH advocates a conservative style of play that ensures you won't be playing more than 20% of your hands unless you're on a rush... regardless, you have to make sure you bet each hand for maximum value so that you have as many chips to work with...

When the blinds are less than 25/50 don't bother raising with anything other than AA/KK/QQ so check out flops with suited connectors, small pairs, etc and hope to hit a monster and double up...

Once blinds get big, target weak-tight players who limp from all positions and raise, raise, raise them with any two whenever the opportunity presents itself...

Anyway, finishing ITM requires a combination of luck/skill, so don't worry if you show mixed results over the short term. Solid play in low buy-in MTTs will almost always yield a profit in the long run...

[/ QUOTE ]

This is my strategy nearly to a tee and I've been in the money in 3 out of 7 of my last $10 or $20 buy-in 500 ppl or more tourneys. I just wish the stupid tourneys didn't pay 180 people, it's a waste of prize money in my opinion. I highly recommend working on your tournament game in the 27 player SNG's on Stars. I was very sporadic until I learned to be patient and also learned that sometimes you experience bad beats and the best way to learn this is by repetition.

The proble with the strategy in the article is that sometimes you get no cards to play well into the 2nd hr. I'm playing in on as I type this. The best card I had so far JTs in MP. I limped in as a few did before me but the button moved all in to fold everyone. What some of you better MTT players do when you get no playable cards till you are down to 500 or less? Second hour BB starts at 100, so stacks with no play can go down quickly. This has been happenning to me for weeks now & I play rags sometimes hoping poker god throw some flops to my direction.

[Potowame]

[ QUOTE ]
The best card I had so far JTs in MP. I limped in as a few did before me but the button moved all in to fold everyone.



[/ QUOTE ]

I guess the button had AA huh /images/graemlins/tongue.gif.

If you are card dead look for situations to take pots, as Co did here with 72o.

[RiverDood]

Echoing what the other posters have said, only half your money in a tournament comes from having great cards. The other half comes from exploiting position and the gap concept again and again.

Here are a couple tactics that can help you add this to your game. I'd recommend dropping down a level -- even as low as a $1 buyin or freeroll -- so that you can try out the concept until it starts to feel natural, without losing meaningful money. Then think about adding it back to your regular game.

1. Go into an MTT telling yourself: "At some point, I will steal with two rags -- and expect to take down the pot -- because my position is so sinfully good." Watch for the point where more than 1/3 of pots are being decided without seeing the river. Then look for a good spot to do this. Ideally you're the first to act from late position, the CO or button. It helps if the SB and BB are medium to medium-weak stacks who don't want to go broke. But as a training exercise, it's better to try a 3xBB steal with trash (or even push) in non-perfect situations than never consider it.

You'll be amazed how often no one wants to pick a fight with your 3-6o.

2. Play three orbits where you tell yourself: "I am not allowed to call." It's raise or fold. Those are my only choices.

3. If the action is late to you and there are 3-4 limpers and you've got a semi-legitimate hand, try pushing with everything you've got. Once again, you'll be amazed how often everyone will fold. You need a decent enough stack that people will be scared of losing to you. And you need the first couple bettors not to be the big stack. The big stack is most likely to call, and once there's one caller, more may follow. But there are opportunities there -- and it's time for you to punish limpers, instead of being the person punished.

Play 4-5 small-stakes practice tournaments this way. Odds are you'll bust out early in at least two of them. But there's also a good chance that in at least one case, after two hours, you'll be amazed at how many chips you've got.

Then you can figure out how much of this Mad Warrior style you want to add to your regular game.

Very good post. I have found myself to have increased my edge once I started thinking "don't look for good cards, look for good opportunities". I know how I feel when I limped with some semilegitimate hand, such as a low pp, and face a raise. Do you want to call of 15% of your stack with 55? No you dont, even if you know you are likely ahead since villain might have two overcards. The thing is, the person who puts in his chips first makes his opponents face decisions and do the guessing. I dont know about you, but I dont like to do guessing in poker, I prefer to be sure. Thats why aggressive play pays of so well in poker, because you dont want to jepardize your chips, and therefore when you are unsure you lean towards a fold!