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Server Time: 11/21/2008 5:46:40 PM PACIFIC |
 Fishy tournament theory, stdioh, 8. Jul 2003 13:55 | ||
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| I've been running extremely bad in tournaments lately. It seems like I'll not have cards to play until it starts to get shady and when I pick on small stacks to chip up I go in with the best of it and get blasted out by 2 outers constantly. I'm thinking of a new complete system of tracking tournament results. I'm thinking that the things to track are money in. Top prize. Positions paid out. What did I place? Did I bust out on a real bad beat? Did I inflict a real bad beat that would have busted me had I lost and if so what position would I have come in? The way I am rationalizing it is this. I'm playing in ricoculously fishy tournaments, so there are three ways to lose. Getting horrid cards and just being unable to play, having the misfortune of an excellent hand being beaten by an even more excellent hand, or having a bad beat. The former doesn't happen very often as long as the tournament isn't a total crapshoot. The second is also pretty rare when you don't play many hands. Thus all that is left is the bad beat losses. When I rationalize it thoroughly, it seems that I'm never out of one of these tournaments really early. I'm always hanging in there for quite some time. Because of the massive mania in these fishy tournaments the correct play becomes a very tight weak play at the start of the tourney which makes it very hard to chip up. When stacks get more critical and I need to start really playing, there are still plenty of maniacs left and thus I get into a lot of hands where I'm all in preflop with QQ or AK, etc. Because these situations tend to come up, getting into the money in a big tournament this fishy pretty much requires a few of them. Thus in a 200 person tournay, if there are 70 left and it is time to start pounding all in preflop with pretty good holdings, it is much more likely to get called by a worse hand with one of these than to steal and it devolves to: additive difficulties. Lets say that I need to go into 3 all-in preflop contests against a single dominated opponent with pair over pair in order to make the money. Now I've got almost a 4/5 chance of winning one of these, but the chance of winning 3 in a row? almost 50-50. So what you can conclude from this is that if you play a big tournament right against a bunch of fish and end up with an average stack around crunch time (blinds of 50-100 in a T1000 tourney with 250 people for instance) then to make the money you're likely to need 3 encounters of XX vs YY to get there and your chance of survival is 50%. In other words, if you never make a mistak in your preflop all-ins and you get to crunch time with an average stack, you're looking at less than a 50% chance (3 outs against you if you are a dominating big ace of dominating XX vs AX which should be factored in) of making the money. What does this mean then? I'm thinking that I need to re-tool my tournament strategy for very fishy tournaments. Because so many fish survive to crunch time and are so cavalier about going all in preflop, the tournament becomes too crapshooty if you get to crunch time with only an average stack. You can't steal to stay alive nor can you see cheap flops. Thus I think it becomes necessary to amass a much larger than average stack size. 2X, where X is the average stack would probably be enough to make the money if you relegate yourself to blinding out at the bottom of the money, but to make the money and still have a shot at the tournament, I think you need to have at least 3X when crunch time hits. That would mean a stack of about 6000 in the T1000 tourney with 250 players. That would make you one of the tournament leaders in such a tournament. My point is that when I tournament gets this fishy, the best way to get into a skill game setting is to take chances early on. What is the proposition then? Well, normally with a hand like AA early in the tourney you're afraid to steal the blinds and would be really happy to make T100 off of it the hard way. Nonetheless, in these tourneys I am constantly seeing players push all in preflop with small pairs and with ring game raising hands - everything down to AJo. It's got me thinking that the way to play in the fishy tournaments is to take all the chances early on and try to build that monster stack ... throw the chips out there when opponents will make huge mistakes by playing instead of trying to dig your way out later by forcing them into small mistakes. Thus, I'm proposing that when you're playing at a table where lots of players will bite with poor hands, pushing all in preflop immeditately with AA, KK, QQ, and AK. If you bust early, at least you haven't wasted your time along with your money. Once you've trippled your buy-in you can then cool your jets and play big stack tourney poker, slowly upping your stack for crunch time. Same goes for flop play. Flop top 2 pair or a set on an uncoordinated board? Push all in anyway. Flop any flush or straight - push all in. I'm not talking about a Sklansky system where you're moving in with a range of hands. I'm talking about pushing in with anything that is "really good" because you are so likely to get called by a worse hand. In a real tournament against quality opponents nobody is going to pay you off unless they have you beat here, but because these players are so terrible they justify the move. This also takes care of another problem I've found. When I play limp early on and the pot has 40 (still the T1000 tourney) and flop 2 pair with a flush draw on the board, then make a pot sized bet to knock out the draw, I find that many drawing players won't bat an eye at calling it. Of course you've got them paying too much, but why not more? You're happy if they fold anyway and if you can make them make a bigger mistake, even better. I think I'll be trying out this massive betting with great hands theory and see if it works out well. I have a feeling that I'm going to be losing much less on bad beats and much more on great hands beaten by even greater hands, but it remains to be seen as to whether I'll do better or worse. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, MozMan, 8. Jul 2003 15:49 | ||
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| Makes perfect sense to me. The ultimate rationalization is this: This is essetially what the fish are doing (only usually with the wrong hands), and the vast majority of them are seeing your "crunch time" with better than average stack sizes. If you don't mind, I will try this trategy myself next time. The $5 NLHE tourneys that draw 300-400 players would be the perfect proving ground for this. -Moz "The reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated." | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, tommyhawk, 9. Jul 2003 05:14 | ||
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| I am very curious how that will work out studioh. Ass i have posted earlier i got the same problem in large tournaments and find myself shortstacked at ( nice word ) "crunch time". Even in 10 player max.tables i am still waiting to get AA early and try this out i will do it 10 times and see how many times i will get a caller. I haven't had the bullets early in the last 50 tournaments. It is an interesting theorie but do you play from QQ or would you consider JJ also? tommyhawk. keep on learning. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, mroban, 9. Jul 2003 06:48 | ||
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| Its funny because I am so new to NL and just started playing NL tournaments. And yet, I have experienced exactly the problem that stdioh has articulated. Perhaps it is because of following the advice on this forum and in reading Cloutier's book that I am finding the same problems. It has seemed to me that playing carefully keeps me around in tournaments but I have not been able to get the chip stack to avoid making a few (to date ill fated) all in moves once I hit 60 players or so to try and move up. Having said that, I have not yet had the opportunity in the three NL tournaments I have played in to even contemplate going all in early with big pairs and big slick because I have not even smelled such nice looking cards. I have been subsisting in tournaments so far with smaller pairs and KQ. Seriously, I have not been dealt an AA, KK or QQ in 3 tournaments so far. Incredible. Big Slick a few times though. BUT, I have been afraid to get busted out early overplaying Big Slick, especially because there are so many "any ace" players out there. When Axx flops, how many times have we seen such players hit their kicker (after calling a decent raise preflop). Perhaps this is where stdioh's "larger raise" theory comes into play. I have usually been making a 5 times blind raise preflop with AK. I have won more than not by doing it. I have also observed many players calling preflop raises with Ax unsuited or suited. Perhaps the larger raise is the way to go here. I think early on we should be happy taking the blinds with AK preflop, yes? It seems that AK is such a powerful hand late in a tournament against players playing more marginal hands aggressively trying to win. But early on, it seems too easy to get beat by overplaying it. Also, in the middle of a tournament, when trying to protect an "X" stack, if a larger stack puts me all-in preflop with AK would you always call? I think you would have to thinking that the larger stack is bullying and trying to bust me out, but against any pair, or even a QTs the hand is vulnerable. Anyway, my point is that I would kill to get good hands early to try your system with. It makes perfect sense. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, stdioh, 9. Jul 2003 11:09 | ||
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| Funny how cold cards can do you in during a tourney and sometimes you hit everything. I bubbled out of a live tourney a couple months ago in which I was dealt AA 4 times and KK twice. The hand I lost out on I had AJ in the BB and the SB stole into me. I called and saw a flop of AA2. We both played slow on the flop and got all in on the turn. Of course my opponent had 22. When the deck is running over you like this sieze the moments and when you get no cards shrug it off. The worst I find is getting hit over the head early on and then drying up later when you really need the cards. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, stdioh, 9. Jul 2003 11:10 | ||
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| Oh, I should mention that in that tourney at that time, I has slightly less chips than the SB. He was the chip leader, I was second, and together we had over 90% of the chips in play. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, stdioh, 9. Jul 2003 11:15 | ||
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| I think that JJ is just too weak to push like this. You really don't want to get into coinflips and it is too easy to get called by coinflip hands. Lots of fish will push with AQ which is great if you have QQ, KK, AA, or AK, but a coin flip if you have JJ. Same goes for players who love KQ too much. It is screwed by the big hands above, but coin flips with JJ. Even pushing QQ and AK may be taking things a little far. Since you're expecting people to go in with small pairs your AK will probably pike out far too often. Still, Possibly if you limited the all in here to AK suited so you're only playing 1/4 of them thusly and still have an edge over other AK. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, MozMan, 9. Jul 2003 12:40 | ||
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| Very valid points. Sometimes you have take your opponent and table texture into account too. For example, last night I raised 3X BB on the button with QcJc, in a steal attempt and the blinds both folded, but the only limper (the UTG) raised me all-in. We had been playing a while, and I saw him do this many times heads-up like this to induce a fold. He had about 60 more chips than me. I felt pretty strongly that he had nothing and called. Turned out that this time he had KK. Here's the coin-flip part: I caught a Q on the flop and a J on the river to double-up and he was out the next hand. Later, I moved all-in with AA against another opponent who called me with AT, and he flopped the str8 to bust me out. Karmic debt? Maybe, but I really think it's just the priciples you talked about. Even though it worked backward for me both times, I will take the AA over the QJ any time. But also, given the particular situation, I would call that QJ if I had it to do over again because I know that player would have made the same move if he was holding 85o because he really thought he could bully me off the hand and was playing the raise more than he was playing the cards. -Moz "The reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated." | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, stdioh, 9. Jul 2003 16:19 | ||
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| Not a coin flip there. His KK had your JQ totally dominated. You were a 4:1 against there. I wouldn't have called him here, not just because I would be worried about KK or AA being slowplayed, but because there are lots of sub-par hands that can kill you off here. A2 is a big favourite over JQ. K2 is too. He could have a garbage hand that plays better all in that yours. Generally, raising to knock out the blinds with this hand and isolate the limper is a bad idea. You aren't going to fold the blinds off of hands that will hit the flop better than yours and if you hit a straight or flush you want them in there paying you off. I think that limping was the right move here in the first place. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, MozMan, 9. Jul 2003 18:18 | ||
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| >>>His KK had your JQ totally dominated. You were a 4:1 against there.<<< Yeah, I can see that. I really felt the call was a coin flip because he was just as likely to have nothing and be totally bluffing as he was to have a big pair like that. He's done it so many times already, and the few that we got to see his cards he had nothing. As far as mis-playing the hand goes, that points to my need for improvement in NL freeze-out play. I'm mostly a fixed-ring-game player, and I tend to think more in those terms. In a limit ring game, I think QJ suited on the button plays pretty well on the button, and will chance a raise to steal the blinds on it occasionally (not always). -Moz "The reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated." | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, tommyhawk, 11. Jul 2003 04:04 | ||
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| finally got AA in first hand on sit and go. BB calls my !,000 in chips with kqo. The nice thing was that the UTG made a small bet so it looked like i was gonna steal. i won offcourse !?!..lol one out of one. tommyhawk. | ||
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| Re: Fishy tournament theory, stdioh, 11. Jul 2003 10:22 | ||
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| Good to hear it. | ||
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