Anyone else notice a New NL style spreading?

[SeanM]

The past three or four days I have seen a drastic increase fo players attempting to go up big or bust on the first couple of hands of the tournament. This has hurt my play, due to the fact that by not "gambling" with these other players, myself and others, have often been left where one or two players go up big and everyone else is stuck playing tight. When these players triple their stacks they can easily manipulate the rest of the table by raising every time they come in on. Fromt the second round on it can costyou 10% just to see the flop. It takes alot of skill out of the game because you are forced to play alot more aggressive and play "all-in" more often.

[bigfishead]

1st. I only started playing "online"5-6 weeks ago. I was told of this action then. I have witnessed it in every single tournament I have entered. Ive entered 27 and cashed 18. I am extremely tight. I notice by the end of the first hand there are at least 4-6 people gone and that many doubled up. Hell I tried it once....course I went all-in pre-flop w/aces. That was after I raised 40x the BB "just to see if I could get the action and got instantly called and then 66 came over the top all-in. Alas 66 won.

But really the point I am making is that you dont need to GAMBOOL. I see'em get up to 20k in chips when I have 3k and they bust out first while I make the money. I got 3rd out of 142 last week. I was down to 1100 in chips twice w/blinds @ 150-300. I even made chip leader for a moment or 2. Dont worry about it. Just play solid.

This isnt new. It's been going on for years. Makes it very frustrating. But overall tight aggressive play will get you there more often then not. Sure ya got your Chris Moneymakers, Carlos Mortensons, Robert Varkonyi's, the last 3 WSOP winners that gambled it up with the worst of it. Yea they got the BIG money. But If they had to play a cash game for a living they'd be broke in a heartbeat.

Try playing ultra tight. Throw away those sm-med pocket pairs. Dont go all-in like they do. Muck AJ sooooted or not, any position. Dont play Ace rag suited unless on button or cutoff for no raise. Muck KQ UTG. Stay agressive and you'll make the money.


2nd They dont know how to manipulate the money after they triple up. 90% have no clue how to use their stacks or when to. Don't worry about that 1 bit.

GL in the future you'll do fine.

[Augie]

I'm truly amazed at how many players seem to put their faith in AJ.

[FeliciaLee]

Amen!

I see it time and again: AJo, ALL-IN! AJs, ALL-IN! Not shorthanded, not HU, but at the BEGINNING of the tourney!!!

Not that I'm complaining. Hey, that is what gives a novice like me a 50% cash rate!

[PlanoPoker]

Hi Sean,

The answer is of course that there is a happy medium. If your goal is to make the most money out of tournament play, then you want to do more than just cash a good % of the time, you want to take top 3, and get your share of the real money. There is nothing worse than playing for 3.5 hours in a $20 buy-in, placing 22 out of 300, and netting $16 dollars. To win, you have to put yourself in situations where you can get a lot of chips. Yes, you have to gamble. Like bigfishhead said, that kind of play will chew you up in cash games, but what does this have to do with cash games? =) I play both and I respect the different styles of play. Those people who claim that tournaments are all luck don't respect the strategies required to win them. Thats all there is to it. My money finishes on UltimateBet (100-300 people each) are 1,2,2,4,5,9 and 10. Top 20 or 30 usually pay. I've played 20-25 tournaments on there. The 10 and 9 finishes were of my first three tournaments by the way, when I used to play tight and squeak into the final table. (At that point it takes miracle cards to move up but its possible.) I am not cashing 50% of the time, but I've had a great return. This may be helped by my love of heads up NL and one-table tournies, but also because I play aggressively in the mid-stages. I don't play aggressively in the first few hands as you mentioned though, unless the cards and the players are really calling for it. It makes sense to get your bearings on the table before executing a strategy.

If you can double up early, the advantages are huge. That means you have that much more time to seek out and find hands where stack size is more important than card strength. That is why you are seeing players trying to double up *immediately*. If your poker earnings are a function of time, then it makes even more sense to get a good foothold in the tournament or let it go and move on to the next one. The more time you spend as a short stack, the less likely it becomes that you will win, and hence the more you should push your luck and either double up or get out. Now with all this said, there is a happy medium between aggression and patience. Yes you should wait for it. Don't throw away your buy-in just to make a move. If you get no cards to play, then yes, wait. This is the opposite side of the coin - "a chip and a chair". Its better to be in the tournament and have a chance to get AA next hand than to bust out with QJo this hand. But in short, make strong moves and don't play just to place. Don't play for pride, play for money. Comments welcome.

Mike

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Are you playing in big, multi-table tournaments or one and two table sit-and-go's?

In a one table event, this type of play makes more sense, in that you'd rather finish last than 4th, and doubling up early increases your ability to play yourself into the top one or two spots.

In a multi-table event, it's much easier to sit tight early and avoid confrontations and pick your spots carefully while the blinds are still small. I treat the early rounds of these events as my time to observe my opponents.

[Jon Matthews]

I think the advantage of having double the stack of everyone else makes this play so worth it. So I am guilty of this play but not with things like AJo all in - more like if I flop 2 pair then all in and hope to catch someone drawing dead with a loose call. Or a nut flush draw when I put someone else on 2 pair. Both plays are essentially a coin flip but if I bust out early I can go to a cash game and win back my buy in before people start getting in the money in the tourney. It's such a waste of time spending 2 hours being blinded and bullied, relying on steals only to get a great starting hand cracked by a loose call from the table chip leader and not place in the money.

But, knowing how to manipulate the large stack to your advantage, as someone said, takes a little practice. If you are able to, then you have a huge advantage over the regular stacks and the inexperienced large stacks.

One important thing is as soon as you double up, stick to only the best starting hands for a good few orbits and let a lot of the gamblers suck each other out. Also avoid the temptation to act as table policeman and avoid the other big stacks.

I'm sure this doubling up play is simply a symptom of the huge numbers of people entering these tourneys and since it is only getting bigger, then I guess it is here to stay.

Jon

[eMarkM]

This might also be an online phenomenon. I'm doing it myself more and more. Online buy-in is a cheap $20-50 for most tournaments and some of these turnouts are quite large. So A) online another one of these tourneys starts every hour so no biggie if you bust out since you can start a new one, and B) with turnouts this large it's worth taking a risk on a coin flip to have a decent chance against a large field.