Loose players

[winky51]

I play in this weekly live tournament for $200.

Usually our table is a mix of bad players and decent ones 50/50.

Usually I see 1-2 loose players get killed early but for the part they usually have more chips than the conservative players (like me). It happens all the time. Now the bad players are not LAGs or excellent readers. They make PF calls to raises and bets that make no sense where all of us conservative players just look at each other thinking "huh".

So what happens is the good players get short stacked and rely on one hand to double them up. But by the time they get that hand the loose players have more chips than the good players.

So I'm trying to figure out how the loose players are being rewarded for being loose?!?!

At the end of 2 hours (4 blinds increases 400/200)

Normally the 3 bad players have stacks of 5k-7k, 2 bad players 2k-3k in chips.

The better players usually are struggling with 3-4 of 5 with 2.5k to 3.5k in chips. the 1-2 that are ahead are maybe 5k to 6k at best.

Someone please explain. Ive played in 7 of these and I noticed this trend in all 7 of the tourmanents.

[winky51]

thanks for the replies as usual.

[Exitonly]

Laggy play can be rewarded in mtt's because you need to acquire a lot of chips in the early stages...

But, you should notice that the bad players usually acquire a lot of chips but end up losing them.. while when the good players get them they hold on.

like how at the WSOP the chipleader at day 1 has never won it.

[AceofSpades]

It's probably a combination of factors,

most flops don't create strong hands, so if you take down lots of pots, and are active in a lot of hands you gain more chips.

if you play lots of hands you sometimes hit strong hands that can stack people

when the blinds are low relative to stack sizes, implied odds are much larger

bad players giving chips away, before they bust out, etc

and luck

[betgo]

It is very common for bad loose players to wind up with a lot of chips by getting lucky in unfavorable gambles. Sklansky discusses this in TPFAP: why the day 1 chip leader has never won the WSOP.

[Exitonly]

psh way to rip off MY random fact betgo. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[bruce]

I think you are playing too tight at the start of the event.
You have to try and put yourself in a position to get chips.
I am by no means advocating reckless loose play, but you need to play hands which you may not normally play in a live game in an effort to acquire chips early. At the start of the tournament your implied odds are tremendous.
They go down as play proceeds. If your stack does not increase in proportion to the average stack and you move all in against a larger stack you need to win or you will be eliminated. Unless you have a large stack regardless
of how strong your hand is preflop unless you are incredibaly lucky you will eventually lose a hand and go
broke.

Bruce

[winky51]

Thanks for the great answers (seriously).

Makes sense the way you all are putting it. I had a notion that it was something like that.

I noticed I never get busted by good players. Their hands are more constant, their bets a certain way and reasonable in size. At a table with a bunch of conservative players its hard to get chips or be knocked out.

At the tables I am at some of the bad players rotate out and they usually do battle with themselves. I always get knocked out by some bad player making a marginal call. Today was getting called ny King High (no pair no draw) and losing to it to be knocked out.

I was seriously considering taking one of these tournaments and changing my play to aggressive instead of Harrington style just to see what happens. Saying SCREW IT and play more hands. Playing wisely of course.

The one tournament I managed to double up 1st hand I played more hands later and did more "mixing it up" plays with some suited connectors. I ended up spiltting top 3.

I am good but not very good at tournaments. But the one thing I can do is read players well. In 7 tournaments I only misread a player once. Ironically I sucked out on him.

[bruce]

This is what I did. I began playing in $10 and $25 sit n go's online. When I began playing online I played REAL
tight, then I slowly adjusted my playing style. I also experimented with different styles and different types of
plays. I even played a few sit n go's where I taped a piece of paper over my hand and played blindly. Today
my game is completely different. It also helps that I rarely play in cash games anymore. If I can do it anyone can because nobody played any tighter than I did. That now works tremendously to my advantage in B&M tournaments because players think I'm still the old Bruce.

Bruce

[KneeCo]

The Home Poker forum deals with this issue a lot, I would do a search there.

Also, Lee Jones' book is pretty good for how to play against these types of players.