Question

[charlin]

In tournaments where the fast raising of blinds will not allow you to play tight and the players are really really agressive....What should you do?

When the play at a table is aggressive you are supposed to tighten up, but if you tighten up and don't get those allowed starting hands then you find yourself playing short stacked in no time at all.

So which is more important...Loosening up a bit and play more mid-suited connectors or stay tight and if the blinds eat you alive then so be it.

[gavrilo]

i dont pretend to be good at tourney play however you would get quite a few more responses in the tourney forum.

[deacsoft]

If you're playing in a tournment where the blinds are going up so fast that they're eating you alive; it's time to find a different tourney because the structure sucks. If it's on-line tourneys you speak of there should be no trouble with this. They are mostly the same to similar in blind structure.

Suited connectors are not the answer. The Gap Theory is. If you don't know what that is; it's time to get yourself a copy of Tournament Poker for Advanced Players (TPFAP) by Sklansky.

[tewall]

When the blinds start to become a significant part of your stack, then top pair/top kicker becomes worth going to the felt with, so you play agressively with big cards and forget about draws completely.

The exception to this is you can be aggressive yourself with anything in the right situation.

You should play tight aggressive with short/medium stacks, but the definition of tight is dynamic as the blinds/stack size ration change.

I have a couple of posts asking for data on all-in situations with smallish stacks. Maybe I'll get some answers to that post which may be helpful. I posted it here and in the General HE forum. I should have posted it in the tournament section, but I didn't think of that.

[umdpoker]

it depends how short your stack is. if you are down to like 4-5 bb's, then you should seriously consider pushing preflop with any ace, pocket pair. of course, this depends how close to the bubble you are, how close others are to the money, etc. tourneys bring a lot more variables into play than just ev of a particular hand. you have to keep the big picture in mind, which is at least making it to the money/giving yourself the best chance to win.

[deacsoft]

All of this is extensively explained in TPFAP. Not to say the advice give in this post (and others) couldn't be enough to give you a decent shot in a tournament. It's just well worth the <$30.00 to have, read, and understand the concepts covered in the book. Certeinly if you are looking to play in a significant number of tournaments.

[charlin]

To be a little more specific...I'm mainly talking about a local tourny they have once a month. It's just a little 50+5 No limit tourny with 100 players max but usually only fill about 70 or 80 seats. The players usually consist of very aggressive or just plain bad players.

The structure is:

Starting chips, 4100
Blinds start at 25 and 50 and double every 15 minutes, so after the first hour they are already up to 200 and 400.

After the first hour the blinds stop doubling and begin a route something like:
400 and 600
600 and 800
ect....

Usually the tournaments is over in about 4 hours.

You would be surprised the amount of bad play in these tournaments, I guess thats why my mouth waters and I question my ability when I come home empty handed.

I have Hold'em poker for AP by sklansky and a low-limit book, and those really help as far as playing hand to hand. But I really need to develop a solid tournament strategy, especially for CRAZIES in this tournament.

It's often, like every hand, I saw several callers after a preflop raise with ANY ace and ANY suited cards and hell even just ANY two cards. Maybe I play to tight because I see these hands winning. I'll fold hands like AJ off-suit, 99-lower, or AT suited in early or mid position regularly, maybe thats just to extremely tight

[Gildersneeze]

When you say "[we]'d be surprised by the amount of bad play in this tournament," do you mean that people are actually playing heinous cards, or are they playing mediocre hands fast in an effort to knock around the tight players?