5$ UB tourneys

[treeofwisdom7]

if anyone here plays one of these i would be happy to hear any input on your strategy ?

usually i'll take the first hour off because you can beat half the field by not playing any hand.

in the second hour i'll have t1.1k in chips and will have to get about 16k to have a nice healthy stack..

maybe i should play more in the first hour.. any suggestions?

[KKsuited]

I won a 509 person $5 event on UB I was playing just for practice.

I think your basic thoughts are correct about how to play early. I woldn't not play at all, but you just have to be careful.

I would recommend playing pretty tight through the first half of the field. You can't get to cute or "make plays" on players that don't know what they're doing.

Really, until it gets down to a couple tables, I usually don't try to much tricky stuff unless I have a huge stack. Once you make the final few tables, you can afford to pull out of the tricks.

[GtrHtr]

I agree you are basically on track. The first hour is insane but you need to play premium hands or you will be passing up on a lot of chips.

[RavenJackson]

I have finished in the top 3 in several 5.00 tournys on UB. I do not sit out the first hour; however, I do play very tight. Sitting out is -EV in my opinion. You are giving up chips and missing valuable information on the way people are playing.

[Potowame]

Hey RJ, what up...

I have to agree, RJ here. I am not passing many chances early to accumulate some chips.

You have to take those small edges and learn to mix it up with the crazys. If you don't you will be in the push or fold mode at hour 2, getting in with the best of it , and crying about how some retard monster stack called your KK with A7os only to spike an ace.

[Noel Montgomery]

I'll play these tourneys occasionally, though I've found the $10 game to be much more profitable since there's about half the players and larger payouts.

For both the $10 and $5 game, I play the first hour strictly Harrington for the most part. That is, I play the strategy laid out in HOH which is pretty tight. On average, I'll have doubled my stack by the first break this way. The second hour I begin to loosen up and make some moves. This is where you can really start to build your stack.

[PuertoKid]

I play these. I strongly disagree with sitting the 1st hour out.

My target is to be at 3k or more by the 1st break. I play pretty aggressively at this stage to build up a stack as the blinds are 50-100 after the break and you need some breathing room to be able to steal blinds and allow for a few mistakes. If you are only sitting on 2k or less chips at this stage, you make one mistake and you can find yourself crippled.

I'm usually pretty good at getting to my target by the 1st break, but I get myself into trouble after the break being too aggressive. Last night I went out 23rd when I went all in with my 33 against 99. My chip stack at the time had me in 13th place, and the person who called had consistently defended his blinds against me. I shouldn't have pushed there. Arrggg!

[treeofwisdom7]

yah im really bad in the early rounds usually i dont know what to do in full tables. but maybe i should follow harringtons holdem hands.. idk

[dozer]

If you play too tight in the early rounds, you can beat half the feild. But you will be shortstacked and get blinded away in the later stages.

I like to take advantage early on and see a lot of cheap flops if the table is passive enough. When you hit a monster hand at these low buy-ins, you will definately get paid off and build a big stack early on.

[Black Aces 518]

I agree with this. I love seeing flops early with suited connectors and suited onegappers in position and small pairs. I'll play my big hands too, but I'm not going to spew chips early on a missed AK or something like that. I'm looking to double up with a giant pkt pair, set, str8 or flush.