B&M tourney strategy

[Aicirt]

I have some questions about the optimal strategy for a tournament at my local B&M, Prairie Meadows in Altoona, IA. The tournament is $25+$5 and has 11 tables of 10. They also have a waiting list and whenever someone is eliminated in the first round (20 mins) then someone can enter the tournament. Id guess that 125 players play in the tournament on average. Top 10 places are paid with 10th getting about their $30 back and first place winning roughly $1000.

You start with t1500 and blinds start at 25/50. Each round is 20 mins long. Id say on average 15-18 hands are played in a round.

Im not sure on the exact blind amounts, but its something like this:

25/50
50/100
150/300
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000
1000/2000
1500/3000

I just played in the tournament once and I remembered that I felt good until the blinds went from 200/400 to 300/600. The average stack size is very small comared to the blinds. My buddy made the final three tables and I checked the average stack size and it was roughly 5500 and I think the blinds were 400/800 or 500/1000 at the time.

The average player in this tournament is quite honestly awful and just let their stacks get blinded away. Most of the players will call most any bet with any two paint cards. The hand I busted on someone limped with QTo UTG and I pushed with a small Ace and he had an easy call given my stack size. Lots of players were limping with these types of hands.

So what should my optimal strategy be? Seems like 10 BBs is too late to start pushing preflop in order to keep ahead of the blinds.

What do you do in a tournament with this structure?

[Sinnister]

Play tight enough so that when you reach for your chips people start to whisper about you having aces, after a while of that and u know you have a little respect at the table look try to steal money from the players capable of folding after the flop. If a lone decent player limps and u have the button go ahead and make a nice raise, then bet the flop and hope to pick iy up, if you get called give up, and dont try any more moves like this till u have comfortable stack, if it works keep doing it, till finally u get him off his game willing to movein with top pair on you, at which point you can wit till you have a hand against them and go for the kill. Start isolating players that you know are capable of folding on the flop, and outplay the bad players using better cards. Online this is tough, but in B&M you can really see whos who. Squeeze out every possible edge other than the cards dealt to you good luck.

The payout structure means you're absolutely playing for first place so I would say once the blinds get meaninful to start raising every time you think you have a shot at the pot. Most important thing to observe is how strongly the players defend their blind, starting at your left and going around. You're gonna need to win every pot you can, and hopefully these chips will give you a buffer for when you wind up all in (which will hapen several times and is unavoidable). Most importantly, make sure you win yu're coinflips.

[MeanGreenTT]

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Each round is 20 mins long. Id say on average 15-18 hands are played in a round.

What do you do in a tournament with this structure?

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1...you must have some AMAZING dealers and/or some VERY fast hands. We're lucky to get 10 hands inside that same 20 minute level.

As for the last question, my answer is, I don't play them anymore [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I LOVE to play live but with the local card rooms charging a 30% vig and changing their structure to further screw the players, well then, they don't need my action or any other thinking players' action.

I like to play to enjoy myself but I like to have a decent shot at making money which is why I think most of here play and this type of structure simply makes winning a crap shoot.