I dont see enough flops!!

[jibs1]

i play alot of live tourneys, say $50-$100 buy ins, 2500 chips and 25-50 blinds with 20 min clock. Typically take a whole evening.

On the whole I am pretty successful but that is because i play a very aggresive game. Apart from the very first level, it is unlikely that i will call for the rest of the tournament. It will just be limping and raising 3-4 times when i come in. If i get re-raised it just depends on my hand what i do and if i get a caller i will try to outplay them on the flop (which is easier if i actually have the cards)

This technique does fall down like it did last night if i KEEP walking into monsters, QQ into AA, AK into KK and KQs (here i was short stacked and needed to play it) into AA. Most times if i dont walk into monsters i have the chips to bully around.

However, unless i am called, i dont see many flops and therefore never see flushes or straights and get the great implied odds you get from them.

My main problem is that like last night i never built up a stack but was never in serious danger, but within say 1hr 30mins, blinds were 150-300 and i maybe had 3,200. Do i really want to be chucking in 300 chips from early position with 910off or 34suited??

This is the one bit of my game i am really struggling with, with me its raise or fold. Its not 1 dimensional coz the raise could be with a 72off and the fold could be a pair of 10's to a early raise, but i just dont see enough flops.

Anyone got any good advice. other than the 1st level should i be speculating some chips?? obviously in very late position its worth a gamble but i dont see how you can do it when you only say cover the big blind by 10-15 times and you are in the first 6 seats on a 9 handed table.

Thanks guys

[DrunkIrish05]

you're playing short stacked poker, without a deep stack you dont' want to be seeing flops because you don't have the implied odds if you do hit the flop. Basically, because you don't have deep stacks, you're risking way too much by limping for the odds of hitting and taking someones stack out to be worth it because the stacks simply aren't big enough compared to the blinds.

So yeah, keep being aggressive, sometime's you'll run into cards, it just happens.

[jibs1]

i suppose what im asking is when in a tourney can i afford to lim - obviously try and do it in the later position at a table but at what stage of a tourney

in a 2500 chip tourney with a 25-50 starting blind, and the stack covering BB 50 times you can def afford a couple

say you get to 3000 chips and 3rd level is 75-150, at 20 times maybe the odd one.

15 times BB or less for me just is a waste of chips.

Do people agree??

And if you add the fact that most rounds someone will raise prior, there are not going to be a lot of opportunities

am i right or talking rubbish?

Thanks

This is the same logic that Harrington uses in is volume two (nice description in his "yellow zone strategy" section). He breaks down your implied odds into three parts:

1) chance of getting raised ( position, agros, etc.. )
2) odds of hitting draw ( trips, flush, etc... )
3) chance of getting action.

So, putting these together, you will have varying implied odds which depend upon your opponents. Once you have this estimated - you also need to factor the size of your stack relative to BB - you need to have at least the implied odds so a push pays off when you hit. This leads to another important factor: the stack size of your opponents who have also limped needs to match your push if you hit. These factors - as you point out - typically hold true at the start of a tourney - but will vary as the tourney proceeds.

Hope this helps...

-turbo