I was reading the old wisdom of MTT strategy and there was a point I want to discuss. Jason Strasser was saying you need to be a creative tournament player to win more tournaments. Barry Greenstein was saying that a solid tournament player is a bad one.
I agree with this point of view and I need to be more creative it is a hole in my game, but I do want to discuss one point. For the lower MTTs ($26 or lower I was thinking, but that can be debated as well I am sure) standard play works so well because of the amount of fish and players who don't know how to play MTTs.
The question I want to ask is do you think in lower stakes MTTs it is extremely important to be creative with your play or is it something you need, but can be better used in higher stakes MTTs?
I ve been watching alot of cardrunner s vid s recently and I think that its pretty apparent that optimal MTT startegy is debatable.
When u say creative I assume you mean doing tricky things in order to get people to fold big hands by creating thru this creativity illusions that they should fold.
Personally I think this is just massively over rated.
I think that extarcating maximum value and folding in the correct siutuations is massively more valuable and profitable than being tricky.
I think it is a much more complicated disciplined skill than simply applying pressure and being aggressive somehwat blindly or creatively.
What Barry Greinstein is saying (and I have nothing but respect and admiration for all of his achievements) applies to tournaments with massive buy in s and v difificult opponenents which was how the WSOP and major tournis with smaller more skilled fields used to play. I think there is so much dead money in most tournis that being creative < being a skilled MTT plyr vs majority of weak opponents.
Maybe towards the final few table sit is worth being creative if you know opponents are tricky but I think its better to smack down on weak passive players likely to be remaining and will play transparently than try and outplay good players at this stage.
I think that extracting maximum value and folding in the correct situations is massively more valuable and profitable than being tricky.
This times one thousand. 1000x this!
You can kill donkaments without ever pulling off fancy plays. Fancy plays are for good players, players you can just as easily avoid playing against. 95% of the players are fish and you can take their chips by extracting the maximum with your good hands and minimizing your losses when beat. Those are the two fundamental exploitative skills that'll earn you the big bucks at low stakes.
Avoiding good players is easier than outplaying good players.
Sorry I forgot to link the thread if anyone cares to read.
What I took creative to mean is varying your play a lot and using some different strategy. Sometimes to make people fold sometimes different ways of extracting value even the stop and go play. Just an example off the top of my head; you have KK in the button and there is one PFR. A creative play might be flatting and getting him to commit more money on the flop and possibly turn and river because he doesn't put you on that kind of strong hand. Other plays like that.
IMO standard play works so well in the smaller stakes. So many players don't know what they're doing that being a solid player ends up very profitable
As I see it you can dial up the creativity-o-meter if you have reads that another player is a thinking TAG/LAG. At microstakes this is rare but if you get involved with another thinking player then you can make moves against them that you can't against the default player. As you move up in stakes you'll see more thinking players so you can adapt to that. Also the default skill level rises so you can assume more about unknowns at high stakes than you can at low stakes.
At low stakes an unknown is a fish, so you don't get creative.
the umbrella term for creative is all of MTT strategy community and all forms of poker
u ve tilted me
u re basically just saying in any position with any set of unconstrained variables with any stack size in any game format what is the bets play without stating any dynamic
its called potripper strategy if u just see their cards its well easy
the umbrella term for creative is all of MTT strategy community and all forms of poker
u ve tilted me
u re basically just saying in any position with any set of unconstrained variables with any stack size in any game format what is the bets play without stating any dynamic
its called potripper strategy if u just see their cards its well easy
Well if this tilted you maybe my KK example was a bad one, but if you read the thread I linked in that's what I meant by creativity
Well if this tilted you maybe my KK example was a bad one, but if you read the thread I linked in that's what I meant by creativity
Heh, poker sure has progressed. Everything in that post you linked has pretty much become "solid" tournament poker--small ball trying to hit big hands with deep stacks, tightening up when shorter, reshoving with 15-25BB, abusing the bubble, etc. This stuff is ballsy but probably doesn't qualify as creative any more.
With that meaning of creative, you should absolutely do these things at any stake level. These concepts certainly work at high and low stakes alike.
yeah the higher you go in BI or deep in tourney the more you have to vary your play a little coz at some levels you are just trading chips back and forth...if both you and your opponent are playing standard poker then you will lose money to the rake so you have to throw curves and such but at lower levels a lot of people aren't sure of correct values so if you bet correct you just take the profit out of the game
Maybe in between hand you shoudl work on charcoal sketches of the other players.
And wear only black.
And have a beret.
Tight black clothing.
And announces your raises in French.
Study philosophy during breaks, quote Kant every time someone gets a bad beat.
Whenever someone wins a pot without going to showdown explain that freud would've said that folding there was to do with your love of your mother and the jealousy towards your fathers dong.
the stasser thread is obv hugely better than my thoughts but imo its slightly outdated now (obv Im sure his game has changed too on no level take this as a slight on stasser)
i was intially quite interested in this thread, op what do you mean by creative, or better yet give me some real table dynamics stack sizes and we ll go from there i dont want to stupidly derail a good thread
what i initially meant was that i think really mastering MTT strategy is much more profitable than trying to get people to fold strong holdings but pls expand on what you mean
It all depends on your table, stack sizes, position, etc. For tourneys I usually have a default TAG style unless I have a stack or my table is tight. For cash games I play more of a LAG style.
