beating a low stakes tourney

[Sinnister]

Sup 2+2ers, this is my 1st post on this forum. I have been playing alot of poker this year pretty much every day trying to master it, only started playing tournaments recently trying to get my 1st win. I find that making moves in them is my biggest downfall, as I often see some players limping with A8o trash and when they limp i get creative and isolate raise them and try to take the pot on the flop, problem is trhey dont fold. Should I eliminate moves like this in these low buyin tournies? 2nd question : I read Harrington on holdem and he seems to advocate making alot of moves with hands like A7 etc when the blinds get high but this is the type of thing that ends up my undoing. Someone always has a hand and I lose. I have the solid fundamentals absolutely down and Im sure If i played best hand poker Id at least make it in the money alot but trying to grab the chip lead by getting extremely aggressive is my downfall. Any advice on how to beat these cheap tournies like 10 dollar or lower would be appreciated. I really just need to hear someone to tell me to just play my cards.

Thanks

[Matador225]

When do u usually try to make moves? I rarely bluff early on unless the situation presents itself. Save creative plays for later when you get closer to the money and some people may actually fold.

[Sinnister]

heh im usually doing it whenever i notice a player playing shyt cards i start making move on him, I should have thought of that to make these moves later on. Needed to hear that thanks, keep the comments commin.

[yaaaflow]

The only time you should be playing A7o and such is when you're trying to steal the blinds - and when you steal the blinds, you should steal the blinds of the people not playing many hands rather than the people playing tons of hands. Don't make moves on loose players calling with anything, cause they're willing to call with anything.

You should post some hands you've had trouble with, thats the best way to find leaks.

Try a couple tournaments playing only solid hands in early and middle position, and only stealing the blinds from the last few spots, giving up to any resistance. Also don't even worry about blind stealing at all for the first hour, just play your good hands. Basically my advise is what you've heard before, play conservatively for a few tourneys and as you get more comfortable, then you can start raising over weak limpers, calling with weak hands in position etc.

[zoobird]

There's one move that I've found works VERY well - even in freerolls. Most bad players aren't thinking about what your hand is...they're thinking about what their hand is. So if there's a flop that's unlikely to have hit anyone a decent sized bet (say 2/3 of the pot) on the flop will often win it. Ideal situation is something like 1 or 2 other people in the pot. Everybody limped, or players you know are very loose raised preflop. The flop has no aces and only one card T or higher (or ideally no high cards). Your opponents will typically fold to a bet often enough to be very +EV. It doesn't matter if its implausible that the flop hit your hand...bad players just aren't thinking about that.

I steal on rare occasions and make resteals even less frequently. I have had good success thusfar playing only quality hands out of position and speculating with the right hands when in position and the situation is right. I would definitely benefit from incorporating some more steals and resteals into my game, but this is something that I think should be done slowly and gradually. I'm beginning to get a feel for the right times to use these moves and have had recent success with them. I've also had major catastrophes with them. That's the thing wih making moves - it takes some failed attempts to be able to figure out what you are doing wrong ... and what you are doing right. I'm just now starting to get a feel for it and still have a lot to learn in this area.

I'd suggest playing solid poker early on and slowly incorporating these moves in the later stages when blinds and antes are a significant portion of most players stacks. Don't try to get too creative at the start and remember that even the guy that appears to play way too many hands is allowed to get cards once in a while.

Harrington actually suggests incorporating these moves a little more just before the bubble when everyone else tightens up and is trying to squeak into the money. Take advantage of the people that actually care about the 280th payout spot as we all know the big payout is in the top three and it takes lots of chips to get there. I think he addresses this in more detail in Vol. 2 when he deals with inflection points of a tournament.