Online Poker Forum at Full Tilt Poker

bmshucks · High Card Joined: 13 Sep 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Texas

I love to play in all types of tournaments. My biggest challenge is MTT. I am not sure what my problem is but I rarely get into the money. Quite often I get out on or close to the bubble. It seems to take forever to get a hand worth playing, especially with a very aggressive player at the table. Of course, if I get AA, KK, etc. I know what to do. KQ, QJ or medium to low pairs is more tricky. I tend to fold them more and raise with them almost never. If a player raises the pot every 2nd or 3rd hand you know they don't have good cards every time, but how do you determine which cards to make a stand with? Any advice or tips would be appreciated. WHAT"S A FELLA TO DO?
P.S. I have won a couple large freerolls and $1 tourneys at other poker sites but never any with any larger buy-ins and decent payouts..

GTKID · Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 11:27 pm Post subject:

Tournaments require a lot of luck to win in the short term. Winning one feels great but it will take a lot of luck and perfect play to make it to the end.

CardiacKid · High Card Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 3

Hey bmshucks...just thought I would try and give you a few pointers/ideas on how to improve your MTT results. I am by no means a MTT expert, however, I do make a solid second income playing these types of tournaments (along with SNG's), and hopefully some of these things can be of assistance to you.

First of all, by the sounds of your post it seems like you are a fairly tight player, who has the art of folding down pat (this isn't a bad thing). As is common knowledge, most internet players jump in there with way too many hands, and thus you already have a leg up on a lot of them. It seems to me that what happens to you (and this used to be a staple in my tournament play) is that you put yourself in position to make the money, but then you get tentative and become afraid to go out on or near the bubble. This is a hard thing to overcome, but it is imperative for you to do in order to go deeper into tourneys.

Let me shift gears a little bit, and answer your question as to the table raising and you folding. As a tournament nears the bubble, most players will get tight and play very few hands. There are some players who will exploit this fact, and raise very often during this stage. The player that does this is sending a strong message to the rest of the table. In effect, this player is saying "I'm not afraid to bust out now, and if you want me to stop raising, feel free to call". You want to be this player. Now, I am not saying that you should be in there every hand, making raises with 3-8's and 4-9's, but you shouldn't be afraid to make a raise late in a tourney with some of the marginal holdings you mentioned. As the tournament gets closer to the bubble, you definitely don't want to be perceived as weak and easily manipulated. By the sounds of your recent experiences, players are reading you in this way and stealing your precious late stage blinds. To help make you more comfortable with raising late in a tourney with a marginal hand, start out by only doing so in late position after a good portion of the table has folded. You more than likely will get the blinds to fold, and then you will only have the one or two limpers to deal with.

I want to finish up by going back on what I said a bit earlier. Do not be afraid to bust out of a tournament. This is crucial to success as a MTT player. If you are playing tournaments outside of your comfort level (i.e. playing a $50 MTT when you can only afford to play $10), then naturally bubbling will be a scary thought. If this isn't the case, you should never be afraid at the thought of going out. After all, how else are you going to pick up the chips needed to go further in the tournament. You need to be aggressive in getting them, and if that means your KQ runs into Aces on occasion, well so be it. Trust your reads, take a deep breath, and make your decision. Do you want to go out with a whimper, or would you rather continue wreaking havoc on the rest of the field with a sizeable stack?

Good luck to you in your upcoming tournaments, and let me know how you make out! Smile

Vlad KGB · Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 7:48 am Post subject:

"In order to live, you must not be afraid to die"

I am in the same boat as you. I think in the higher buy in tourneys, near or at the bubble we tighten up alot and miss an oppurtunity where we could exploit the rest of the tight players. This is probably due to the fact we dont want to lose our investment and also the fact that the payouts in the larger buy in tourneys are pretty nice. I also find my self excelling in the $1-2 tourneys and i think that is because i am not afraid to change gears and play loose and it might also be because the other players are of less quality.

See ya at the tables.

bmshucks · High Card Joined: 13 Sep 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Texas

Example 1:
Blinds are 50, 100. I am down to less than 400. Get a couple of decent hands and go all-in. Work myself back up to 5600. Early position player raises, I reraise with AQ diamonds. He reraises which puts me all-in. He shows AJ off. Flop comes AJJ. Only prayer is another A. Of course the A doesn't show. I am gone. This is the same scenario for me over and over. This was a cheap buy in with about 100 players, paid 10 places. I finished 18.

Example 2:
Shootout round 1. Lousy cards for me considering the raises going on. Getting very short stacked and blinds 100, 200. Finally get pocket 8s with 4 players left. 3 players advance to next level. I raise all-in and big blind calls with AA. I get lucky, hit a set and win the pot. Just a couple of hands later I get 10 10 and go all-in again. Run into AA again. No set this time I am gone.

Example 3: How would you play it?
Another shootout. Once again with 4 players left, 3 to advance. I get pocket 10s. Make a 3X bet under the gun. Button calls. Button is pretty aggressive and the chip leader. Flop is AKK. I make another bet about 2X 1st bet. Button calls. Turn is J. Now I am thinking any AKJQ has me beat and it is very remote that I will win with a straight so I check. Button makes a good size bet so I fold. Chips are short now. No more decent cards came and was blinded out. This guy may have had a smaller pair or a draw of some sort but he board scared me bad. Like I said before, this guy was aggressive and I wasn't able to see many of his cards because he raised so much so often.

End3r · Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:53 am Post subject:

I think we both have the same experience with MTT's, we play pretty tight agressive and feel we have to be very lucky to win or at least reach the final table in a mtt. I don't know what I could improve either to be at every single final table like Jesus is. Maybe we should take more notice of the other players at the table, and rely more on our observations than on our cards. Those three examples u've given above are very similair to most of my tournament knock-outs.

	Full Tilt Poker is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. © Copyright 2004 - 2005 FullTiltPoker.com., All Rights Reserved