what is the best buy-in to gain MTT experience

I didn't have any questions on opening up my game, I assume that comment was toward OP.

As far as M and my recommendation, I suggested that he not concern himself with keeping up to "play his game". Would not the M and Q be part of that game? Keeping up with the chip leader when you have a below average stack is not an option, YOU HAVE TO ACCUMULATE CHIPS. How do you accumulate chips? By using YOUR skills and experiences to eak out any edges you can. Let's say you are at a extremely LAG table, according to you your Q is suffering (obviously so would your M), so you LAG it up with these larger stacks and "open up" your game as the OP suggested. Yet your own skill and experiences have taught you that when the table is loose you play tight and when the table is tight you play loose (HOH). Now if we base all of our play on the M and Q we are no longer playing our game, we are not playing the table, the players, the situations we are just opening up and stepping on the gas. This is not smart poker. This is what i meant. Please don't misinterpret my original response and tell me I need to read HOH. That's funny.

"all of your question about opening up your game are directly tied to your M ratio"

This is incorrect to say ALL. you still must play the situation, the player, the table and eak out what small edges you can. Is this not what i said by playing your game? I am merely suggesting you don't start bleeding chips off by playing every half rate hand that comes along.

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Now if we base all of our play on the M and Q we are no longer playing our game, we are not playing the table, the players, the situations we are just opening up and stepping on the gas. This is not smart poker.

This is incorrect to say ALL. you still must play the situation, the player, the table and eak out what small edges you can. Is this not what i said by playing your game? I am merely suggesting you don't start bleeding chips off by playing every half rate hand that comes along.

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Good points

I also really like the MTTs and have been funding my "lessons learned" from my ring game profits. A few of my lessons:

1. Be cautious during the first orbit. Double or die is a popular strategy by players who don't want to commit 3 hours without a good start.

2. Keep the tournament lobby open during your play. I usually keep it on the BOTTOM of the field, not the top. I find this far more encouraging when cold decked for an orbit or so. It also gives you real time M & Q data for your calculations.

3. Develop your READS and rely on them. I'm amazed how many times someone at my first table ends up against me later ITM.

4.. Keep reading HOH. It takes a few passes to get the nuances - esp. the play tight at a loose table, and LAG at a tight table (within reason). If you can't steal at some point, you won't make it. Your image is your best steal weapon.

5. Have FUN! Its only $10 for several hours of play. About the same as a movie, but with upside!

6. When you do FT and win, DON'T WAKE THE KIDS! That really sucked! but now I can enter and lose 60-70 more MTTs and still be +$$.

Good Luck!

[ QUOTE ]
I also really like the MTTs and have been funding my "lessons learned" from my ring game profits. A few of my lessons:

1. Be cautious during the first orbit. Double or die is a popular strategy by players who don't want to commit 3 hours without a good start.

2. Keep the tournament lobby open during your play. I usually keep it on the BOTTOM of the field, not the top. I find this far more encouraging when cold decked for an orbit or so. It also gives you real time M & Q data for your calculations.

3. Develop your READS and rely on them. I'm amazed how many times someone at my first table ends up against me later ITM.

4.. Keep reading HOH. It takes a few passes to get the nuances - esp. the play tight at a loose table, and LAG at a tight table (within reason). If you can't steal at some point, you won't make it. Your image is your best steal weapon.

5. Have FUN! Its only $10 for several hours of play. About the same as a movie, but with upside!

6. When you do FT and win, DON'T WAKE THE KIDS! That really sucked! but now I can enter and lose 60-70 more MTTs and still be +$$.

Good Luck!

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Thanks for the pointers. I know HOH is my best bet and I'm re-reading it now. It improved my STT play no end so now I'm going back with more of an MTT slant. There is so much in there I'll probably be re-reading for the 100th time in 10 years and still be only just getting things. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I only ever play QQ, KK or AA on the first orbit, a hangover from my micro buy-in STT days where on average 3 of the field had gone out before they posted a blind!

I tried a few $5 MTT's on my week off last week and even then I was surprised to see some of the same old user-names in these things. Remebering players and taking notes is something I need to improve on a lot.

I'm lucky that I can ignore the buy-in once I've clicked on the 'register' button. I've got past letting money influence my decision on a particular hand. I let it influence my decision to buy-in or not and that's it.

If I ever win one of these things I'm gonna wake the whole street [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[FrogMouth]

In response to your original question, you should try some of the sites other than PP & PS. Prima & Pacific have much smaller fields for the respective buy-ins. You should try your had at those. Much less of a time commitment and still have a relitivly easy fields. In a field of 500 your chances go up exponentially over those 2000+ donkfests.