Got back into playing poker last year after years away from it. I play mostly online. 6max Zoom Cash games on Pokerstars. Currently a winning player at 10nl there.

There's a local casino in my city. I have played the cash games (€1/€2) there and found them extremely soft. The problem is that they don't really get going until late at night which doesn't really suit me. There is a €50 tournament that starts in the early evening though. It usually has about 40-50 entrants and if I last long enough in that then by the time I get knocked out the cash game will have begun. A typical trip to the casino involves me getting knocked out in the tournament after a few hours, but well before the bubble, and then making back my losses, and more, at the cash game.

I wasn't too bothered initially that I hadn't been successful in the tournament. I understand that there is huge variance in these things and I was typically able to point at a hand that I had gotten unlucky in. At this stage though I'm starting to realise that no, I'm probably making strategic mistakes. What typically happens is I play pretty tight early on. There's a lot of limping which I generally don't get involved in. I typically only raise or fold, with the exception of hands like suited connectors and low pocket pairs. I'll try and 3bet a linear premium range. Thing is there often isn't much fold equity - I recall 3betting 99 from the SB against an opener and a flatter. I think I 5xed the initial open - not only did both of the active players end up calling but so did the blinds. I don't tend to flat opens at all myself unless I am on the Button or in the big blind - I'm thinking that probably really is a mistake right?

What tends to happen is I either double up early on or I just get chipped away. When my total number of BBs is in the 20-60 range I tend to be a bit lost as to the deviations I'm meant to be making to my ranges. I know I'm meant to be stealing blinds but, frankly, that's very difficult when people don't fold much pre or post flop. That forces me to make hands and that's not always easy to do. When I get short-stacked I go into push-fold mode, which I feel comfortable enough in but I feel like I am ended up short stacked too early and inevitably I bust long before the final table.

Can anyone recommend any resources for me for learning to beat this kind of live tournament?

Played this again last night. Same result as usual. Knocked out of the €50 tournament 12 places from the money then won €147 in the cash game.

When I was playing the tournament this time I was really concentrating on spots where I felt quite unsure what to do. I suppose what it comes down to is that I can go away and memorise GTO opening and calling/3betting ranges for various stack sizes but I think that that probably wouldn't be optimal since the opponents deviate so much from optimal ranges and bet sizes themselves.

My biggest question is around limpers, especially when we have a stack of around 30-60 BBs. In a cash game, with 100bb+ stacks I'll typically use a formula of 3BB + 1 BB per limper + 1BB if I'm in the blinds - something along those lines. With shorter stacks though I'm unsure what the best strategy is. Say, for example I have a 40BB stack and there are 4 limpers (not uncommon in this game) and I'm in the SB with AJo. What should I be raising to here? If I were to go with the formula above that'd be 8bb, which would be 20% of my stack - is that the right play? I really don't know.

Another thing is that in the middle stages I noticed that some people were opening quite large with respect to the blinds - like 3-4BB. At one stage I was in the BB with A6s and faced an open from CO (no limpers this time) for 3.5BB. I had 30BB. What should I do there all else being equal? Easy Call? Easy fold?

The flip side then is I wasn't sure how much I was meant to be opening? In one hand it folded to me on the BTN. I opened with Q8o for 2.2bb. BB flats and then check-jams a 853 2-tone flop for 4x PSB. I'd seen this particular guy do crazy shoves before so I called it off and he showed 63o and caught a 6 on the turn to knock me out. He defended this "questionable" play by say he would have folded preflop if I had opened for a "proper" size. I realise that that's just variance and that I probably do actually want him calling with 63o (rather than folding it if I opened larger) but should I be opening larger if everyone else is?

So yeah I'm just really confused. I'm sure that I need to be playing exploitatively but I'm not really sure exactly what those exploits should be.

It's getting late here and I have work tomorrow but I did read your first post on Saturday and I do have some thoughts - I'll try to expand on them when I have some time and don't need to be up in the morning.

So, the good news is, you seem to be self-aware enough to have a fairly accurate diagnosis of what you need to improve. I would start by studying GTO opening ranges at various stack depths and positions; your cash experience will serve you well on the whole, but it's also geared toward deeper stacks, and in tournaments you're going to spend most of your time playing shorter stacks. And the shorter you get the more important each chip is and the more important it is to have those ranges down.

Similarly, in a cash game your SPR going to the flop heads-up is going to usually be at least 15. So you may want to do a little tinkering and learning about what hands are strong enough to stack off at lower SPRs. (If you min-open off 25BB and the BB defends, you're looking at less than 5 SPR; obviously that gets even lower for shorter stacks.) I do think people (including me, and it's something I've been working on) tend to overestimate how strong a hand you need to have get it in profitably postflop at those shorter SPRs.

With your cash experience and success, I'd be playing looser early on. Deep stacks are where you have the most experience and probably the biggest edge; put it to use. Obviously you don't want to play badly, or spew, or bleed chips, but you may want to play more hands in position, get yourself in more spots where you can win a big pot, etc.

You should do it anyway, to solidify your foundation, but of course then adjust your play to the players you're playing to maximize your profitability. I've told people on here before who think studying GTO lines is a waste of time in their games-- "If you don't know what the theoretically optimal play is, how do you know how to deviate from it? Or if you're deviating from it?"

Weird raise sizes happen a lot live. Obviously you should play tighter ranges against bigger ones, I think that's evident. I guess in that specific situation you describe it depends on what I think of CO. Like if that size means something really specific, like 88+/AQ+, I'd just fold. If he's opening hands like KTo and J9s that big, though, then I play, maybe even jam over them. Obviously that's tough to know until you see some showdowns.

I wouldn't change my raise sizing on the basic level-- don't let other players' mistakes lead you to make your own. I might start adjusting and raising bigger in spots where the theoretically optimal or standard raise size isn't achieving what I want it to achieve. (And this isn't even a small-buyin thing; I've seen some of the high-stakes tournaments, early on when stacks are still deep, where players will just bomb with a massive 3-bet out of the blinds, like 6x or more, because they want folds since they're OOP and they want to lower the SPR so they can stack off profitably more often.) If a standard 3-bet isn't thinning the field or getting the SPR where you want it, change your size so it does.

How deep were you on the Q8o hand? You played it fine, although once I get above 60BB I tend to open larger from the button because my range will be wider, and it serves the purpose of discouraging action, but also building a bigger pot where I'm in position if I do get action.

Your formula for limpers isn't too far off. (You can generally open smaller in tournaments, but the gist of it is correct, at least when you're deep-- when stacks get shorter your raise sizes should get smaller.) In spots like that, if you think 8BB will get folds or get it heads-up, make it 8BB. If you don't think it will but you're confident you have the best hand and their ranges are wide, there's nothing wrong with shoving. It might look unusual and be a lot to risk, but this is where the confidence in your reads and the players at the table comes in. You can add 15% to your stack that way, and that's a decent pot. And if your reads are correct you shouldn't be getting called, at least not by a better hand.

So I think that's about the sum of it. Definitely learn the preflop ranges at various stack depths, because that will probably come up for you more than anything. Other than that, get your theoretical play down, but don't be afraid to adjust to whatever actually works against your table, even if the sizing seems absurd. But don't do it because everyone else is doing it. Do it with your goals in mind. Much like you might bet smaller on the river if you're targeting second or third pair calls vs. bigger if you want to put top pair to a tough decision, decide what your goal with the bet is and what size you need to achieve it.

Thanks so much for the detailed and thoughtful response. You've given me several key tangible areas for me to work on and I am grateful to you for that.

That's a fair point on GTO ranges being the starting point with regard to deviations. I do that already in cash games with regards to things like widening or tightening GTO opening ranges from CO/BTN depending on the 3Bet %'s of the players left to act behind me.

The Q8o hand: We were both ~20bbs deep.

Yeah I get what you mean in that last line. I refer to that as "targeting" and it's is something that I try and think of when I'm betting when I'm playing cash games - as in: "What am I targeting here with this sizing?"

Last question for you - are there any accounts that you recommend on YouTube that are tournament specific? I have loads already that are dedicated to cash games or broader GTO concepts but would like to add in some tournament ones to the mix.

Thanks again.

Yeah, your raise size is fine. I mean, I'd generally never raise more than 2x at 20BB, but 2.2 can't be too bad. Maybe if you think the BB is going to be annoyingly sticky and has something marginal you can go as high as 2.5, but I definitely wouldn't put more than that at risk at this stack depth.

Ha, yeah, you get the idea. Just expand it to preflop and to how the specific opponents you face are playing.

I don't have any YouTube coaching recommendations, sorry. I mostly use books and run through solvers or GTO trainers myself for my study.

I do watch a fair bit of the super-high-stakes tournaments just to see how the players who play at that level play their spots, and there are a lot of options for that. The weekly GG Super Millions, the Triton series, the PokerGo series.

Nath's response covers almost everything. But one thing I would add is not to forget about the impact of antes (assuming the tournaments you play have one--I am not sure how things are in Europe). They mainly mean you should be both opening and defending lighter, and also have a ton of smaller impacts I'd encourage you to research.

Thank you nath for the very nice post (and many other posts but whatever).