Freeroll (sort of) Tournament advice sought

[antidan444]

I'm playing in a 25-point NL tourney at Ultimate Bet tomorrow morning. Essentially, it's a freeroll. It's the first tournament I'll be playing in, and I expect quite a few fish (150+ already entered), but I'm sure there will be enough decent players, too.

My question is, in a tourney this size where most of the players are sure to be loose-aggressive (though not by choice, but by lack of poker knowledge ... if you told them they were loose-aggressive, they'd look at you funny), what should my strategy be early in the tournament? Players start with T1000, blinds start 10-20 and go up every 12 minutes.

Thanks for any help.

- Dan

(BTW, I've been reading the forum for about three weeks and it's already helped my game immeasurably. Thank you to all.)

[Nottom]

I wish I could help you but since I can barely make the top 100 consistantly in these 400 player UB freerolls, my advice is probably not the best. Play tight early, don't get involved in big pots with marginal hands and drawing hands ect.

The big thing about UB is that damn "bet pot" button they added, people who used to bet the minimum or some other small amount are now betting the pot all the time which of course means you need to be more selective about the hands you play. On the other hand, when you have a hand and bet the pot, people are used to seeing the big bets so they will often pay you off when they wouldn't have before. On other sites where people aren't as aggressive you can often play some more speculative hands in certain situations since they often let you draw cheaply.

[Copernicus]

I guess UB is different than every other site, because everywhere else they are loose/passive.

If they are loose/aggressive I think you have to tighten up even further and not play middle pairs and connected suiters that you can limp in with at Party or Stars. You simply cant afford to be calling a lot of hands hoping for a flop. Play Hellmuth's top 10, raise 3x the BB when you hit one, and with a good flop (good for you AND no drawing hands) trap those that are guaranteed to bet into you or bet the pot if theyve become loose/passive after the flop.

You will win enough of those to have a nice enough stack to not have to risk big bets with marginally favorable odds, like you sometimes do when everyone is tight/aggressive.

[antidan444]

Finished 59th out of 400. Not complaining. Not complaining at all.

Because I really didn't care about the payouts (It's $15 just for the winner, for crying out loud! I'm not going to squeeze every chip to get in the money (top 40) just for a thought ($.02 ... heh heh), I was only interested in having a shot to win. I certainly had that ...

Down to about 140 or so players left, big stack (in tourney) is about 13K ... I have a little more than 6K to lead my table, second chip leader at table (directly to my right) has a little more than 4K. I get dealt KK I raise (duh), several callers. To make a long story short, Flop comes Qxx, two diamonds. I open, a couple callers. Turn is a J, not a diamond. With the calls on the flop, I'm positive I'm in the lead. At this point betting the pot would take about 2/3rds my stack, so I push all-in. Second chip leader calls with A-10 diamonds, looking for his straight or flush. He catches a diamond on the river, and instead of having more than 10K, I'm down to 1800.

Didn't catch any cards the rest of the tournament and, with the rising blinds set to eat me alive, I push all in on 10-7 suited from the cutoff (No limpers or raisers before me) and get beat by something like Kx suited (different suit). No help comes for me, ending my day.

Without the drawout, I'm in the top 10 at that point in the tourney ... but those are the breaks, and I'm not complaining. Only thing I'm wondering is if going all-in on 10-7 suited was the right play there, when I could have seen four or five more hands before the big blind totally killed me.

One more time, I have to thank and praise all the regular posters on this site. Three weeks of reading the forum here has improved my game 10-fold ... though I still have a long way to go. (Working on that ... bought HPFAP today ... wanted to get TOP first but it's not in stores around here. Maybe soon).

- Dan