Sam Farha's style to MTTs

[MrMoo]

No one mentions his stack size. I'm relatively certain that was his reasoning for playing so many hands. If I recall correctly he busted two people fairly quickly. After checking cardplayer I see he ended his first day as 2nd in chips.

[Sam T.]

For the on-line crowd, another a key factor is who you get involved with. At most starting tables there are one or two players who simply cannot fold. (I don't know if they need to re-load the software or what, but they simply don't have a "Fold" button.) Make it your business to get into hands with these clowns, because someone is going to get their chips, and it had better be you.

Also, position, position, position, and family pots. If there are a ton of limpers in front, and you've got 87o on the button, limp along. Implied odds are stupendous. Don't try this from UTG because you do not want to face a raise OOP.

[ansky451]

Who ever said to play as tight as possible early on?

I definitely play very loose and aggro early on, and I walk a fine line between "loose" and insane.

Playing tight early on sucks.

[nath]

I play somewhat loose in the early going. Love suited connectors, suited aces... love LOVE small pairs because so many donks will go broke with top pair or an overpair when you hit your set. In practice, I've found that the implied odds on small pairs / sets are better than almost any other speculative hand.

Of course, the real key to playing the Farha style is to wear a suit or striped shirt and keep an unlit cigarette in your mouth.

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You can call any raise if you have a good read on your opponent and have position. Having said that don't go calling EVERY single raise with 75s because thats just chip spewing.

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This is clearly wrong.

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How?

[ZeroPointMachine]

I like to see cheap flops with speculative hands anytime I can. The structure of online tournaments really only makes this viable in the first two levels or in the middle stages of some re-buys when there are alot of chips in play.

One way to maximize your opportunities to do this is to encourage passive pre-flop play at the very beginning. Resist your aggro instincts on the first hand or two of a tournament. If you jump on the first dead 60t you see in the pot you are not going to see those extra flops and you may miss out on chances to outplay your opponents postflop for their stack.

[johnnybeef]

Here is the thing. Sammy's style works for him because he is a superior hand reader, and it behooves him to be in as many hands as possible due to this. I recommend that you find some areas of the game that you excel at (and be 100% honest with yourself) and taylor your style to those strengths.

If it wasn't for him being a lucksack and winning three blind all in's after being short stacked early in the Main Event he finished 2nd in, you would likely not even know who Farha is. Beside that though, cmon, he had AT on an AAT flop with other guy having TT on the first hand, thats rediculous in of itself, I'm curious as to how much he would have lost if the board only contained one ace. Another point is he had implied odds on many of his calls, and the chips to do so with. For example, if he put the idiot raising 20xBB and 10% of his stack on AA/KK, and Sammy was only risking 5% of his stack, and knew when he hit he would likely be stacking this idiot, hes hitting 1:7.5 and stacking idiot for 10x his investment, just because its 20bb doesnt mean the implied odds aren't there. In the televised hands, he was also catching his draws left and right, no telling how the other play went down. All in all, playing for implied odds early is definatly fine, but I think Sammy is often on the extreme end of the LAG spectrum. I don't doubt hes a good player, either, don't get me wrong, and I agree with playing for implied odds when your stack allows you to do so.

[pfkaok]

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Here is the thing. Sammy's style works for him because he is a superior hand reader, and it behooves him to be in as many hands as possible due to this.

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Yes, althought they show very little of the action on ESPN, you could tell that him and Dan N were at a pretty weak table, and were RIPPING those guys apart. even though only a few hands were shown, it certinaly displayed how easy of a time those 2 had against their table, and how uncomfortable and overmatched the other players must have felt.

when you're world class, and have a bunch of amatuers, who aren't very good, and are off balance b/c they're nervous to play with you, you have such a huge postflop edge that you can play just about any hand profitably (if you don't have to commit too high a % of your stack PF). of course, with the structures and players online, you'll never be in that favorable of a spot.