Hey Grunch (No strat. content)

[mosuavea]

Good questions and I await Grunch's respone, most of that was pretty much exactly what I was going to ask.

I too have read HoH and played quite a few sit and go's to break the mundane world of grinding limit. I do well int eh SnG's, dont have my ROI right now, but I have been winnign money. I dabble in the small buy in multi's on party every once in awhile, but a lot of it is a crap shoot. How worth it is it to be playing those 5 and 10+1 multis party and the likes run? With the donks playing in those tourneys, it makes for an entertaining ride, but I don't know how much real value there is other than the experience of a massive array of styles you encounter. I think I am going to continue grinding limit, reread HoH on my plane ride to Vegas next Tuesday and coem back and hammer sit n go's and roll the winnings over to a couple higher buy in multi's. If I wasnt taking a trip to vegas very soon, I would have roll over 3K, but its going to take a little hit, but hopefully I do some winning in Vegas to dampen the blow.

This post has no real questions, just some random thoughts on playing multi's. Droolie pretty much covered anything I was going to ask. Appreciate all the things you do for us in the micros here, and great job on the rebuilding.

[mosuavea]

One more thing droolie about the MTT forum. I frequent it while I am at work and I really do find there to be little content anymore, most of it is toruney play by play that gets any responses. Defintiely not as much good content in comparison to the other forums on the board. Thats just my take as I find it weird as well.

[GrunchCan]

This turned out to be random & rambling...

I played in maybe 50 cash SnGs and about 10 WSOP sats and supersats before moving to cash MTTs. My ROI on the WSOP sats was low, and then when I started playing the cash MTTs it shot way way up. I attribute this to 3 things: luck, study, and the difference in the games. I explain.

In micro limit cash games, you see a prepondance of very bad players - and they are a special breed of bad. They are very loose and very passive. There are others too, but the LP-Ps dominate and give the micros games thier flavor. But once you start going up, the flavor of the games change. There are more (but still few) good players at 2/4, but the bad players are a different kind of bad. There are a lot of weak-tights, a lot of maniacs, and other sorts too. The difference in mix in my opinion makes 2/4 very beatable.

The same kind of thing happens in NL tournies. The lower buyins sport the LPs, and the higher buyins have a similar mix as the 2/4 games. This is even true at the 100+9 level. Rebuy tournaments attract the LPs too, propbably b/c they like the idea that if they screw up and bust, they can reinvest so all thier effort isn't wasted. These people are dead money, and only help to bloat the prize pool. But a problem for me is that I can't really start playing poker until after the first break when the rebuy ends. Before then, its a lot like a crap shoot.

Where was I going with this? I dunno.

I lurk the MTT forum, and post the occasional post. But I spend a lot of time in the MTT archives. There is gold in them thar hills. linky

When I watched Fossilman win the WSOP on TV last year, I frankly wasn't very impressed. He seemed to get lucky on coin flips a lot. Its like he never lost a race, and that was the biggest reason why he won the bracelet.

After scouring the MTT archives for a while, I have come to realize that my assesement of Fossilman was as far from the truth as possible. He is truly one of the greats of the game. I've spent a lot of time just looking for fossilman posts - there's a ton out there. So that's where most of my MTT forum effort is expended. Going through old posts.

HoH is a key ingredient, but there are other ingredients too. TPFAP is a must-read. The Ciaffone NL book is a must-read. THe MTT archives are a must-read. And a deep understanding of ToP is critical to success.

I actually think that a successful limit player has the basic knowledge they need to be successful at NL & tourney play. After all, NLHE is HE, just like limit. The same concepts apply - pot odds, equity, outs, etc. Its just that in NL, b/c the bets are larger, some concepts are amplified while others are diminished. For example, I frequently read things like "getting 1:4 is really great," which as a limit player seems strange. I mean, if you're getting 4:1 in limit on a draw, you need to throw most hands away. But in NL implied odds play a much bigger role than in limit. I'm still getting used to this.

I never had the nerve to just jump in the deep end and play the big 100+9 games either. That is a big chunk of change. I know that the chances that I wouldmake that money back from any one tourney is very slim. If I sat down with that attitude, I'd play scared money.

But I wanted to play as high as possible, becasue I like money. So then I got the idea of playing the 100+9 on a freeroll. I'd play a 2/4 session with the specific goal in mind of earning the 109 I needed to sit at the MTT. This I felt was easily accomplished. If I had a down session, I'd try the next day. Once I got the 109, I registered for the MTT. It didn't matter if I went out of the tourney out of the money, becasue it was a freeroll for me. This gave me the right attitude to play a NL MTT, it gave me the $ to buyin, and it had no impact on my main bankroll. Doing it this way works really really well for me. It might work for you too, if you can look at it as a freeroll. If you played in a 100+9, I think you would be shocked at the quality of the typical opponent. Its a lot like 2/4. Every table isn't filled with Doyles, Howards, Fossilmans and other pros. There are many many very bad players. I don't know how they got the buyin. Its a real mystery to me. Oh well!

[droolie]

Thanks dude.

I've read all ther books you are referring to with the exception Ciaffone. I have his Middle Limit book but what NL book are you referring to?

Is it this one?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ce&s=books

Do you think HoH strategies work better at the larger MTT's? I find that at the 3-table tourneys if I get cold decked in the beginnig or miss flops early I'm short stacked and need to play catchup the rest of the way. Before I know it I'm going all-in on the button with A20 before I get blinded away. (I feel like a noob who wants his raises to be respected LOL. Since your implied odds can be so good against a single player and you can lose your whole stack in NL, I actually think this is much more important than in limit.)

I also find that some of his raising recommendations seem ineffective in these lower $$ tourneys. For instance if I raise 4x the BB in EP with AK or TT and I still get called in 4 places I have to hit the flop to win. If I don't hit the flop I'm short stacked and have only one or two chances to get back in the tourney. It seems to me that these 4X and 5x raises are designed to get us HU (or steal the blinds) more often than they in fact do. I found I was actually doing better before reading HoH when I played it like limit ie. just raising 2X the BB because I was giving myself more chances to enter pots and hit monsters and double up. Does this make sense or am I just too stoopfid to beat bad players let alone good ones?

[GrunchCan]

I haven't read the mid limit book. Do you recommend it?

[ QUOTE ]
what NL book are you referring to?

Is it this one?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ce&s=books


[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, that's the one.

I find that HoH works ok in low-buyin MTTs too, but the advice needs to be tempered. For one thing, a 3xBB PFR that's designed to get the pot HU often needs to be much larger than 3xBB. It depends on the table - sometimes 5XBB works, sometimes its as high as 10xBB. Every table and every opponent is different. I like using the early rounds to find out what works. Also observe the action in hands you're not involved in.

I pretty much never minraise. There is one exception: AA UTG. Other instances are me just mixing it up.

Something else that has taken a lot of effort for me to really understand: broadway cards (especially offsuit) are much less valuable in NL than they are in Limit. AKo is still a strong hand. But its not nearly as string in NL as in L. It has to be played accordingly.

Overvaluing broadway cards is actually the mistake I made that eliminated me in 11th place in the stars rebuy event. I had about 15xBB in my stack, OTB (I think). An EP player raised about 4xBB, all fold to me, I push. I did this for 2 reasons; first, I thought I could push EP off his hand and second, I thought if he called that I was no worse than 50:50 ish. EP calls & flips over AK. I don't improve, I'm broke. I way overestimated the value of KQ.

Something the Ciaffone book really drives home is that NL is a double-through game. You're looking to play pots where you have a good chance to double through your opponent. That's very not true in limit. In limit, you're trying to grind chips out of your opponent. The same rules of physics still apply. But now instead of building a bridge, you're building a car.

[droolie]

I think his Middle Limit book is quite good. It gets blasted quite a bit around here because it's on the weak tight side if you play against typical piss-poor players but for higher limit games against very good players it is probably dead on. I find much of the advice to be a very good counterpoint to much of the 2+2 literature and it comes in real handy when the table texture changes from loose and wild to a clutser of TAGS. I real good read that I recommend to everyone.

[mosuavea]

Grunch,

How much value do you see in playing in the smaller 3 table multis in comparison to the large scale Multis when someone is starting to dabble more and more in tournies? I havent played many 3 table tournies, but I think I am going to start playing more and more of them.

As you said in a previous post, off suit Broadways and the like were something I was definitely over playing and putting to much value you when I first started playing. After reading HoH, and the Ciaffone book, and getting ticked off after losing a good chunk of my stack taking them too far I realized I needed to change.

On the topic of the MTT archives, a couple posts by eMarkM ( one here ) are truly gold. I think I am going to make a nice binder for my flight to vegas that I can comb through along with my HoH to pass some time.

[McGahee]

Hmm, I guess I have a lot to learn about NL. I thought AK was stronger there than in L.

[GrunchCan]

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm, I guess I have a lot to learn about NL. I thought AK was stronger there than in L.

[/ QUOTE ]

It could well be. Don't think for a moment that I know what I'm talking about.

[GrunchCan]

Well, its a good warm up I guess. I mean, you can quickly & cheaply get used to the mechanics of playing in a tourney & playing NL. And lots of people are SnG specialists. If that's your thing, then that's your thing. But for me, aside from exposure to tourneys and NL play, I see no need to play the SnGs at all any more. The blind levels are so short that it quickly becomes a must-move crapshoot, making it more of a contest of luck than the big MTTs. I also stay away from the turbo MTTs, which have a very quick level structure. I'll play an occasional SnG when my time is short or I just want some cheap fun. But I don't think it does anything for my MTT game, and MTTs are where my focus is now.