First Win

[EarlOfSandwich]

I've been almost exclusively a NL cash game player for the past year, but I find since the blind structure change at Party that the tables have gotten gradually tighter. They're great to play on the weekends, and sometimes good at other times, but there are times when I log in and don't see anything I'm terribly eager to play.

I've ended up tinkering around with a few MTTs over the past month or two. I played one, felt totally out of my depth, and then came here and looked at some threads. I was lucky enough to find the one post a few weeks ago that had links to the "greatest hits" around here, and several of those threads were enormously helpful.

I quickly developed a strategy for the early-to-mid game that makes sense to me and has led to good results. I can be more specific, if you like -- I think it's actually a somewhat extreme strategy -- some folks around here seem to do something similar, but perhaps not to the degree I take it.

After making it to the mid-game several times, I learned a few basic lessons (read: I screwed up a few times). I'm finding it's pretty common to wander around the mid-to-late game with a 12BB-15BB stack, or a little higher or lower than that. One simple lesson was that you should be making moves with around 12BB, and you shouldn't try to pressure limpers with a standard 4BB raise -- it should be all in. If the cards don't come, you can survive and build with selective chip moves, and if you make the moves, you're liable to get blessed with a big hand eventually, and people want to call you when they've seen you make those previous moves.

So I played the $30+3 on Party this last Saturday, and I got a chance to think about the rather sizeable leaks in my game, because I finally got to play the whole thing. This was literally the first time I played with a big stack in the mid-to-late game. I hovered on the brink of extinction for the whole middle portion of the tournament -- between roughly 10-20BB the whole way, with an occasional dip down to 7 or 8BB. I made true steals a few times, and other times moved in with near-premium hands. I never saw AA, KK, or QQ until after the bubble burst. I was scraping and clawing all the way through.

The weird thing is that for the first time in my life, I was perceived quite clearly as the maniac. I'm pretty cautious at the NL ring games, taking people down mostly with big hands. But because I hovered around 10-15BB for so long, and because I made several desperation moves, combined with some semi-solid moves (I got AK and AQ back-to-back, at one point, and pushed with both), I actually had people chattering about how "crazy" I was. One player (who I judged to be very good) made a comment about me being "the bully", and started instructing people how to play back at me (any pair, he suggested).

About midway through my "crazy" period, I had dropped to 8BB, and made a desperation move a couple hands before the blinds were going to hit. I had 34o. No callers. I showed the hand, and then immediately thought that was the most boneheaded thing I could do. Definitely increased the chatter about me. And I figured this was bad because I'd lose my ability to bully anybody out of any hand.

I also recognized, clearly, that my table image was very distinct. I raised my starting hand requirements, figuring that if people were going to be willing to play me, they'd have to do it against premium hands.

I thought this was, overall, pretty bad, because we were getting into the bubble period -- prime stealing time. I wasn't getting any hand to participate in the stealing with, and I felt if I went in with less I might get called.

Basically, I thought I was done for.

I didn't get anything worth playing until there were 51 players left -- one off the bubble -- so I literally risked being the "bubble" guy to build my stack a bit.

So the bubble bursts, and, supposedly, people loosen up a bit. I cruise along with very selective aggression. And, finally, I get those calls I need. I have AK, and someone decides to finally take out the maniac with their AJ. (I'm sure they had visions of my 34 when making the call.) I finally see AA and QQ. I'm suddenly the big stack, and hovering around chip leader position. I hovered at or around chip leader for quite a while, taking the occasional loss, but challenging the small stacks, calling a few all-ins, and pushing people around.

What I realized is that I had extremely limited skills weilding the big stack. I *should* have shifted gears to using those smaller bets to push people around. One skilled player a couple seats to my left put on a nice clinic for me -- using his big stack to pressure with bets that were small for him, but big for everyone else. I watched him build while I kind of floundered, not managing my position very well. He buit to twice my stack, then three and four times ... and became dominant over the whole field by the time we got to final two tables (he built to 160K, versus a couple of 40K stacks in 2nd and 3rd place).

It looked very much like he was running away with it. I managed to survive and build a bit until I had 51K when the final table formed. Another guy had 53K, and the dominant guy 160K and growing.

I was honestly very proud of myself at that point. I told myself it was OK to go out at any position, but that I should also allow myself to go as high as I can based on situations/cards. Don't give up on first place, but don't expect it either. Just try to play each hand on the merits of that hand/situation.

Lo and behold, the big stack starts to lose to a few other guys. He gets knocked down to 120K, I go to 70K, and some other people build 80K and 70K stacks. People are occasionally dropping. There was just a whole lot of play back and forth for a long time that is mostly a blur to me now.

That "blur" somehow resulted with me trailing in 2nd place versus Mr. Big by only about 10K, when we got to final three. Third place guy is maybe half our size.

We play around for a while, and then I get the pivotal hand. Instead of taking out Mr. Third Place Guy, I end up confronting Mr. Big directly. I'm on the small blind with J7s, Mr. Big calls, and I'm allowed that rare opportunity to limp into a hand late in a tournament.

Two spades on the flop (matching my two spades). Mr. Big bets out for 20K, which I don't like committing to a speculative hand, but it's well under 1/5 of my stack, and I'm 1 in 5 to make the flush on the turn.

So I takes my chances. A lovely little spade hits the turn. Mr. Big decides he still needs to be aggressive, with this being a big pot and all. He bets out again. And at this point he can't let go of the hand. He refuses to believe my raise means I actually have it (me being the maniac and all), and that's all she wrote for Mr. Big. I push him in for his remaining 10K on the next hand, and enter final 2 with a lovely 3-1 chip advantage over Mr. Third Place Guy (who's probably pretty happy to be Mr. Second Place Guy at this point).

I'm not a good heads-up player, but I did manage to convert that to a win.

I realize this may very well be the only time I win a MTT. I'm just really glad I did it once, and I think I'll actually be calmer in the later stages in future tournaments. I think I would've had a tendency to question whether I could ever get first place -- and that question is gone.

I think you have to kind of feel that basic tension between aggression and caution all the way through -- you should elect for caution for periods when the opportunities just aren't there, but shift to aggression at times. I personally feel like I'm constantly on that edge between aggression and caution -- trying not to be too much of one or the other. Any observer would have said I was too aggressive in this tournament, but I think I was more cautious than I seemed.

Thanks to all of you guys for your comments and advice. Couldn't have done it otherwise.