tournaments

[jamspm]

iv heard and read a lot of different advice on large tournament strategy such as only play few hands and then loosen up, but by the time they tell u to loosen up u have so few chips its pointless? wuts a good efective stragegy?

[PredAtor10Erat]

There really is know strategy to poker lol. It's alot more about instinct, you can't go into a tournament with one mind set. You have to have good judgements on your hands and switch up your style so your harder to read. tournaments take alot of patients too. Big ones can take hours and you have to keep your head on straight to win, alot of people get antsy and start to play too agressive toward the end of tournaments and it can cost you.

[sharppi]

Well in big tournament there's one method(which seems to work) is just play tight game. Atleast to the first break. Then you can open a little your game, if the playing changes.

[jeffsbabe]

there is no one strategy that works for everyone. in rebuy alot of people like to go all in to increase their chips and if they lose, buy their way back in. i don't like rebuys for this reason. if you are patient in the beginning and then loosen up all is good-if you get good cards! if you're not getting good cards it makes no difference

[restante2007]

i have a question about how i can became moderator?is that posible?pls help e
tks

[wheeloftime]

treat every game freerol or buy in the same. Dont pay with 72 off suite. only play your top pairs. AK, AQ top face cards. Play those and you should do well.

[ozboyy]

Originally Posted by wheeloftime

treat every game freerol or buy in the same. Dont pay with 72 off suite. only play your top pairs. AK, AQ top face cards. Play those and you should do well.

Yep! Good advice if you are going to sit and wait for top pairs but your stack will just shrink.

[alli2132]

First of all, freerolls and MTTS of any decent buyin play very differently. The same strategies will not work. Freerolls tend to play very loose and MTTs substantially tighter and better (you wont see many all-in preflop with 93o for instance.)

That said, the following is for $10 MTTS or higher.
There are two schools of thought for play during early blind levels, but most pros agree that this is not the time to take huge risks. One theory is to play many pots with a wide variety of hands. Try to see cheap flops with all sorts or connectors, high cards and suited aces. Obviously play your premium cards as you normally would. The other theory is to play extremely tight since there are no blinds to fight over and no short stacks to abuse. At this stage of the tournament you are building your image for later - building it loose aggressive or tight. The first will get your big hands paid off and the later will allow you to steal most successfully when the pot is worth the bluff attempt.

After the first break people generally reassess thier playing. Most serious players will use the break to tighten up and to "play better." This means your table is ripe for looser raises and reraises. This is the time to start being creative. Bet out when the 3rd flush card comes on the turn, lead out on an AAx board. You need to create chip accumulation situations, you will simply not get good cards often enough to wait. Pick on medium sized stacks- not on small stacks or huge ones. The large stacks might call you down or play back at you because they know they can hurt you, and the small stacks are looking for any opportunity to go all-in and double up. Generally you want to do the opposite of the rest of the table. If the whole table is calling every hand and seeing flops cheaply - you need to start raising more often. And real raises, not double the blind raises. If the table is wild and crazy - tighten up and raise big with your premium hands, go all-in preflop with the big pairs. If the table seems timid, you need to get in there and get active. Call, raise and reraise ALOT.

If you have other aggressive players at the table, stay tight and wait for a hand to double up from them. Push back with any PP 9s and higher, reraise with AT+ (this is debatable and really depends on who the bully is)

Bubble Time

Near the bubble alot of people tighten up again, trying to make the money. The common concept is to loosen up here and take advantage of all the timidity. However because of the popularity of this style, you'll often find that your whole table loosens up. So your reaction should be to, again, tighten but play back with above medium hands (QJ, KJ and better)

Final two tables and final tables can be very stressful. Very intimidating. Before you start, take a walk around the house. Jog in place, take a quick shower. Try to get the nerves out before you start playing. Betting with huge amounts can throw anyone off.

For the most part, if you watch any significant MTT ( like the Sunday Million) you'll notice that players at the final table only play a very few hands. Each showdown seems to be a coinflip between QQ and AK. And unless you have a very very timid table, those are the only hands you should play too. Obviously, if you get there on the short stack (9 or less blinds) you need to find a good spot to push. Good hands for this are any A and any pair (although be wary of 22 and 33) You are better off making this move in mid or late position, but if you let it go too long, the table can call you with any two cards correctly.

There are many many MANY specific stategies and plays that I wont go into on this thread. But in general the rule of thumb is to be aggressive aggressive aggressive.


Alli

[loustic]

Yep, aggressive, or your stack will shrink like snow under the sun

Also, the hands that you should play may vary regarding the ratio of your stack and the total of the blinds.
If you have a huge stack compared to blinds, you may enter in the pots with many hands, putting more and more pression on your opponents.
But if your stack is low regarding of the blinds, you can't play suited connectors any more for instance, neither the small pairs (unless your stack is really low, so if nobody entered the pot already, you can push all-in with a small pair, expecting for other people to either fold, or lose against your small pair)
The main principle you must understand, is that your play must change as well as the structure of the blinds change. If you don't adapt your plays and your starting hands while the blinds are increasing, you'll be out of the tournament faster than you can imagine

[stjanson]

The best tactic I use is just to be steady all the way through and never let any of those all in constant idiots get to your nerves. play hands that you feel good about and always see the flop when you're either of the blinds