Party mutli NL hand, what am I doing wrong here and in general?

[Senor Choppy]

I haven't played in any big (1000+ people) multi-table tournaments in a while. The last 5 were all terrible, see the flop occasionally, miss entirely, get blinded to death very early, so I haven't even seen blinds larger than 100 in a long time, which is somewhat embarassing :/

I feel like this is one of those hands that would be easy from a 3rd person perspective, but for some reason I was lost when playing it...

So far in the tournament, I've gotten 4 hands that I raise with and steal the blinds, and that's about it, but I'm still at around 1k in chips. I'm not too concerned as the blinds were going up pretty slowly, and I never felt the need to rush into mediocre hands before. But now the blinds are at 75/150 and I find myself in the big blind with 755 after posting, with the sb raising to 300 after it's folded to her. I have a4s and it feels like desperation time out of nowhere. The sb was one of the few people I thought I had a line on and so I decided to call and see the flop and go from there.

The flop came A 7 5. She checked and I did the same wanting to extract money from a bluff, feeling like she would need runner runner at this point if behind.

Turn is a 7. She bets 150 and I just call, again thinking a raise accomplishes nothing and I don't feel like she has an ace.

River is a 2. She bets 150 again and I just call. She has Q7s and wins a 1200 chip pot.

I felt really good about my postflop play, but preflop I really didn't know wtf to do because I felt like the blinds were escalating a lot faster than I remembered and didn't really know when I needed to close my eyes and make a stand.

Is A4s enough of a hand to move in here preflop or is it too early? And what about just calling the preflop raise? (I like how I played it from the flop on, results aside, but don't feel like it's a very good preflop play to make normally). How likely is it to get to the top 3 spots in these with tight, solid play? Is reckless aggression in the early middle rounds required if you ever want to get higher than ~50th? Due to the payout structure of these, all I'm really interested in is making final tables with a solid amount of chips, not grinding my way to the money and winning twice my buyin, which is what I felt like I was going to do even if I got lucky. Any advice, about the hand or in general, would be greatly appreciated.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I felt really good about my postflop play

Why? You passively called off most of your remaining chips.

but preflop I really didn't know wtf to do

In these blind vs. blind situations, it's best to know what you'll do postflop before you make a decision preflop. Once you call, there's 600 in the pot and 555 in your stack. You flop top pair. Why do anything except try to win the pot right there? Why risk giving a free card when you can more than double your stack right now?

the blinds were escalating a lot faster than I remembered and didn't really know when I needed to close my eyes and make a stand.

I believe that desperation time begins when your stack has shrunk to 10x BB.

How likely is it to get to the top 3 spots in these with tight, solid play?

Not likely. Daniel Negreanu said it best - if you sit around and wait for the deck to deliver you opportunities, the deck will disappoint you more often than not.

The best NL tournament players tend to be loose-aggressive with superior hand-reading and player-reading skills. You have to identify which players you can pick on and steal blinds regularly to avoid slow death by attrition.

Is reckless aggression in the early middle rounds required if you ever want to get higher than ~50th?

Not reckless, intelligently fearless. In TPFAP, Sklansky writes about not turning AQ into 72, meaning that if you raise with either, you'll probably have to throw both away to a reraise. To my thinking, that makes raising with trash easier, because there's no doubt what to do when someone plays back at you.

[Senor Choppy]

I decided preflop I was probably moving in if checked to by this person postflop. If the flop was ace high I was committed. But with it coming ace high and ragged otherwise, I thought a free card was worth the risk because I didn't think I would get called with a worse hand, but might pick up more chips by picking off a bluff or two. I'm not a fan of passively calling off most of my stack as a general rule, but it seemed like this was perfectly reasonable in this situation. And because of my short stack size, it seemed like a better way of getting back in contention (more risk with a free card, but more likely to get called down or bet into if I checked). If I thought I would be called by moving in on the flop I would've done it in a heartbeat since I figured to go broke against a better ace on later rounds anyway if I was beat. If you still think this play postflop is wrong I'd like to know why.

It seems that most NL players are pretty fearless late in tournaments when there are a few short stacks trying to stay alive that they can pick on, but you never see the same players early in a tournament, 10 handed, against amateurs that might not mind going broke by calling raises with normally dominated hands, so I've always been curious what these players do at this stage.

Thanks for the response.

[AceKQJT]

Hi Choppy,

I'm sure you realize that you are really in "all-in or fold" territory here, so I won't harp on that (although a push pre-flop would probably have kept you alive).

Your check on the flop was not a very good play. With your stack, your really can't afford to slowplay anything, aand certainly not top pair crappy kicker. You suggested you had a line on this player, and you didn't put her on an Ace. I'm saying that EVEN if you DID put her on an Ace, you have to bet the flop. The goal when the pot is large is to win the pot...right now.

You already know all of this, though, because you have been on these forums for a while. As a matter of fact, I don't think I'm going to tell you anything you don't already know. For whatever reason, you played that hand terribly. Probably because you put too much confidence in your read on the other player. I imagine we have all done something similar (I know I have), and I'm sure we will again. If this hand had worked out in your favor, you would have thought "Man, my read was spot-on, what a great play!" [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

--Casey

[Senor Choppy]

I think you're right about pushing preflop.

My thinking on the flop was that checking gave me a better shot of winning a bigger pot, and it was worth possible elimination to be greedy here and get as many chips as possible. I guess I should've just bet out and been done with it. It wasn't something I did postflop based on a specific read, I just felt in my chip position, the risk of getting knock out was worth taking because I needed to do something to get back into contention.

Just finished another tournament and got knocked out moving in with the best hand after making the money, which feels a lot better than wondering what might've been if not for a dumb mistake [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for the replies. I'm really not looking for info I already know because I'm still trying to adjust to NL, advice from more experienced players is always helpful.