#1
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Strategy when everyone has Low Ms and your Q is healthy
In the low stakes ($50-$200) Live NL multi-table tournaments that I play in, the blinds and antes raise so rapidly after about 1/2 of the field has been eliminated that everyone in the tournament has a M less than 7. The average M at any given table is around 3. The cause of this situation is that the number of hands played per blind level drops to 4 - 7 hands per level (20 minute levels) because dealers are struggling with chip distributions from multiple all-in hands. The dealers at these tournaments are not very efficient distributing chips after all-ins (btw - this is a major metropolitan casino). If 3 people go all-in on one hand the dealer can take up to 10 minutes just figuring it out. Anyway, this situation happens every single tournament. Very few hands are played at each of these levels and the blinds and antes start raising so quickly relative to the number of hands played that everyone's M starts to get in the red-zone. This situation (everyone with low Ms) starts after 1/2 the field has been eliminated and continues all the way to the final table. I follow Harrington's red-zone advice religously and am going "all-in" when I can get first in vigorish with a suitable hand for the position. Most of the players in these tournaments now have me marked as an "all-in" lunatic. I find myself pushing "all-in" more frequently than others at the table, thus I am pushing small EVs frequently. I realize this strategy puts me more at risk to bust out, but it also improves my chances of making the final table (going deep). The other players generally play much tighter than me in these low M situations, so when I'm called, they generally have a strong hand. Usually, my chip stack is larger (due to stealing more blinds) and I can absorb a beat without getting knocked out. When nearing the bubble, my typical Q is around 1.5 but my M is 3 to 4. I'm starting to wonder if Harrington's inflection point theory / strategy needs to be adjusted somewhat with healthy Q and low M situations. So here is my question:
When near the bubble with Q=1.5, M=4 and most at the table with M<3, do you tighten up like Sklansky would reccomend (too make the money) or do you stick to Harrington's formula for pushing all-in with first in vigorish dominating your betting patterns? |
#2
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Re: Strategy when everyone has Low Ms and your Q is healthy
I would continue to be aggressive - this tourney format is much more like an STT so the most important thing to know is the calling range of your opponents for your pushes. If you have a sense of that the math is pretty straight forward. The fact that you can withstand the occasional calls by the premium hands is the reward for your aggression - very "brunsonesque".
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#3
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Re: Strategy when everyone has Low Ms and your Q is healthy
Keep pushing around the bubble, people will know you don't have good hands but they won't call you cuz of sklansky's theory of folding into the money. It's a theory in which your desperate for money and if your desperate for money you shouldn't be playing tournament poker or poker in general. All the money is in the top 3 holes and you have no chance to get there without being aggressive around these times. Like said above if people are only going to call you with premium hands push all day. However, if people start loosening up against you and start calling w/ hands like A5 or K9 etc... then you need to tighten up a bit and not be a complete lunatic.
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