Play more hands or fewer?

[davidross]

Does anyone know what percentage of hands they play intourneys compared to live play?

I ask because I suspect I'm not playing enough hands. Typically when I get into the late middle stages of tournaments (which is usually as far as I get) I check my percentages and I'm seeing about 10% of the flops outside of the blinds, and 14 or 15 % including the blinds. I'm also only winning 6-7% of the hands dealt.

I play more hands early when the stacks are deep, and usually build my stack nicely, although this is probably due to the bad play of the early losers rather than playing a lot of hands. It just seems to me that the times I do well it is more likely to be because the flop hit my less than premium hand rather than my AA or KK hands holding up.

I'm wondering if I should be open raising more often with hands I would muck in a ring game, prepared of course to fold to a re-raise. I mean hands like QJ in MP or A7s. KQ in EP or even baby pairs late. All of those I'm folding right now.

Comments?

[No Nuts]

I'm almost positive I play far fewer hands in a tournament than I do in live play. I don't have the stats in front of me to back that up, but I'm fairly certain that's what I'd find.

I also struggle with tournament play, but I am getting better. Like you, I think I play too tightly to have any real chance of doing well. I might sneak into the money now and again, but it's rare that I get to the top three spots where the big $$ are. I am working on my aggressiveness, though, and I learn something every time.

Raising with the thought of folding to a re-raise can work well, but be careful not to overdo it or the perceptive players will pick up on this and play back at you.....of course, that time you'll be holding a good hand.

Good luck.

[gcDanno]

I know how you feel. I always seem to hit that stretch, especially in our fav $10 rebuy tournament, with 300 players left, and I'm in about 80th overall that I fold almost every hand. The other night, I saw the flop once (lost it calling an all in short stack), in over 70 hands in a row. In that time, I did take down 5 blinds.

So to answer your question, I play (see the flop) around 25% of hands in the first 2 hours, then when it's all in / fold hour, I'm usually more like 5-10%.

In the 3rd and 4th hour of these tourneys is when you really have to get lucky enough to both get big cards and get them in position to get paid off. It always seems I get AA/KK/QQ when I'm UTG instead of in the preferable BB or LP at this stage of the tourney, so I usually take down the blinds.

gc

[tripdad]

in general it is correct, i believe, to play fewer hands in tourneys than in ring games. it is definitely correct if the ring games you refer to are limit games. i think 14-15% is a tad tight, but probably not overly so.

cheers!

[fnurt]

The concept in the later stages of tournaments should be to play relatively few hands, often coming in for a raise and winning only the blinds, but you should aim to win most of the hands you play. You're not looking to speculate with mediocre hands later in a tournament because it costs you a significant chunk of your stack just to see a flop.

[eMarkM]

Your percentages are about what I average.

You can't really compare these percentages in a NLHE tourney with what you'd get in a LHE game with, say, typical Party players. Keep in mind, you're naturally going to see fewer flops in a NLHE tourney than you do in a live game. It's the Gap Concept. The gap is wider in a tourney than a live game so you get fewer callers than you do live. You're winning far more blinds in a tourney than you do in limit ring game so of course you'll see a lot fewer flops. So I don't think you're playing too tight. As to winning 6-7% of your hands, well if you double up each time you won, you'd be chip leader. Point is, you don't have to win as many hands in NL as limit, just when you do win a hand make it really count with doubling up or eliminating a smaller stack being your goal when you have the best of it.

All the hands you mentioned, I open raise with them all if I have a bigger than average stack. The more stacks I have covered the looser my raising standards, taking special note of how much I have the blinds covered and what the specific stage of the tourney we're in. For example, I'm table leader, and we're one or two players to go til the $, and two medium stacks are in the blinds and you know there are a few small stacks at other tables close to blinding out. Open raise from MP to LP with virtually anything. That's the absolute ideal sitaution to be in as you can steal with abandon. Same cards, but I'm below average with 15X BB in chips and an aggressive player is table leader in the BB, I probably muck and wait for better cards.

[SossMan]

% of hands played doesn't equal % of flops seen. You probably shouldn't be seeing many flops unless the table is unusually loose passive and you have lots of chips...but, you should be playing a fair amount of hands (taking them down preflop)....much of this depends, as always, on the main factors that determine any play (image, stack size, relative position, position, table play, opponents, payout structure, bubble distance, etc...)

[davidross]

Hey Buddy,

Thanks, thats what I was looking for. Planning for next year already!!! What cruise are we going to win trips on ?

[Chief911]

David,

I'm far from an expert, but I only remember 4 or 5 hands you saw the flop from outside the blind with in the Super Thurs. You probably are a very good post flop player, why not see some more hands, and outplay people postflop?

Nick

p.s These 10/20 tables are fun. Thanks for the recommendation. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[holeplug]

I usually start tournies playing a little looser than normal, more suited connectors and such, to try and flop something big and double up early. If I can do that then I usually tighten up and wait for my premium hands until the blinds get big enough that it becomes necessary to steal them to stay ahead.