[Closed] GTD monday 20k

Hi helemaalnicks!

I think your strategy should work also in a 20k tournament because there are still enough people who don't know how to play poker. Although there are more people who know the game than in $300 or $1500 tournaments your strategy should work fine.

Good luck at the tables (and in the tournament)
Puschkin81

Puschkin, actually, a question about all of that.

In LARGE tournaments (ie the featured scheduleds), isn't it a good idea to get more involved earlier while the blinds are very low (and just hope for some luck)?

I just find that if you do hit a monster, it will guaranteed pay you off 2x maybe 3x.

Also find that without a nice chipstack going into the bigger blinds you WILL be overwhelmed.

Less so in MTT of course, but when it comes to 200+ players (my experience being freerolls) a looser strategy to start with helps a lot more.

Maybe this isn't the case in these sorts of tournaments though, as the buy-ins are large enough to keep total fish maniacs out of it.

A tight game in the first stages of a tournament is advantageous because the pots are relatively small and the risk-reward ratio is bad (you can lose your whole stack and win a relatively small pot/blinds).

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

i think the trick is, cheap calls, expensive folds. Don't worry to much about your reputation at the table, because the table shifting tends to be very quick. Although i see what pushkin says, i think a cheap call for a suited connector has enough odds to bulldozer a slowplayed AA. I just watched a negreano video, and the small balls strategy gave me inside. Is very similar to this site's strategy, but with a bit of an accent on position play. You can call a much wider range in late position or late middle, to see if you can hit you straight with 9 10 for example. The straight pots tend to be a lot bigger then the randomflop-pots.

What i also found usefull was, calling with nothing. There negreano spoke about calling the standard cont. bet that the button or CO makes after the flop, which, if you call it, can pay you off on lots of turncards.

If you play to win, you have to win some, because while you may only be playing the 10-hands, and win them, you are still very likely to end up shortstacked because some people also play on 8 or 9-hands, and those players reach the final table.

You absolutely need luck to win a tourny, i'm in a 180 dollar downswing now, but i'm sure my luck will change again. You can't survive (or even end up at the final table in a bigger tourny) if you are not prepared to die.

I don't think that it is good for a beginner to play like Negreanu. Calling with nothing which is known as floating is a very complicated move and depends a lot on reads, table image, stack sizes etc....not very recommendable for a beginner.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

interesting negreanu is brought up, the few MTT i play i tend to play very similar to him too (i regard him as the best tournament player alive at the moment).

can definitely see your point though

don't think he's so much suggesting floating per se, more like putting more value on low suited connectors and middle unsuited connectors in position

ok, whatever you say, lol

just saying i agree with you helem

I agree with you that Negreanu is one of the best tournament players. His small ball theory looks good and I'm sure that it works for him. But I doubt that a beginner can handle these situations. First of all you need to know the basics of tournament play, the dynamics, different stages of a tournament, table image, chip stacks, etc. The examples negreanu is giving in this short video are very simple and don't cover complex situations where different plays are mixed up.

I just want to prevent beginners from making moves which are way too complicated for them. That's why my advice is: stick to the basic rules.

In the near future we are publishing a new tournament strategy area for beginners. Just wait for it and stick to the rules which are outlined there.

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

yes agree with that. But maybe I'm no longer a beginner, rather an amateur or something. I got money in a 13k tourny yesterday, the best hand I got was AQ, and I had terrible luck. I floated once, on a rock. It worked well, but the flop was perfect.

I didn't say that you are a beginner ♦ I just want to prevent others, who are reading this and watching the youtube video to start playing like this without experience and without knowing whats going on.

If the flop was fine and the opponent a rock: well played! Maybe you can post that hand in the sample hands board?

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

it was a perfect example, i had 33, and called a miniraise from mp3, because of the set value. Flopped AAK. He bets 1/2 pot - - - insecure rock.

SO.... i call

and the turn was crap, and I thought, i could have had an ace, that would be a good call, so i bet 2/3 of the pot, and he didn't have to think about it at all. The 2/3 of the pot i bet was about 1/3 of my stack size, so i could have handled losing.

Btw: I did it again a couple of times today, lost it once. The best one was when utg called 300, avg. stacked player, and i was in bb. I check, het bets, i call, i bet, gone. His play was soooooo predictable, it was a qualy, so most pple were donks.
(don't play qualy's on interpoker, they ARE MINE, WHAHAHA, lol, my win avg. is over 70% now, it's like an aquarium).

hahaha... i lol'd at aquarium.

floating is very hard where I am. Need the bet to be ~1/2 opponent's stack for there to be any fold equity.

which makes for very easy but also very boring play: i just wait until i get the perfect cards, and bet on them. or i wait until the table gets SH and i start stealing blinds with marginal hands. mostly works.