Hey guys,

I am new to the MTT higher stakes in my region, where we are playing buy ins from $500 up to $5,000.

I am actively seeking to enhance my skills, however without a network to discuss (I am pretty much a poker loner), it is difficult to bounce the below areas that I know need improvement, hence why I have decided to join here and seek out any suggestions on where to look to enhance my challenges below.

First and foremost, I have been searching the web for the best interactive / most beneficial poker course / training that is suited to the areas where I need to improve, other than the generic one fits all courses that appear to be all I am finding.

Being in Australia, it is difficult to find a poker coach or mentor, particularly when I am versing these guys on almost all major events that circulate.

If by any chance there is anyone willing to work with me, I would be more than happy to consider.

Specifically, I would appreciate:
- Where to find best one on one training?
- The best course available online or elsewhere, suiting MTT mid to high stakes Poker
- Any Australian Poker Players that would be interested in coaching or mentoring.

In the previous 12 months, I have played approximately 100 tournaments, won 2, Final tabled 4, Cashed in about 4 more and had a lot of early to mid departures with most departures being day 1 of multi day tournaments, other than the deep runs.

In summary, 100 tournaments, 10 cashes ~ 10% ITM

Anyhow, see below my thoughts on where I need to improve, and I would welcome any assistance that may be offered in response, and appreciate your input in advance.

Early Stages:

I am unsure how to play the early stages, as I have had variable success on every approach I have tried, whether that be tight and wait for premium hands, or widening a range and playing a little more agressively. I undersant variance has a large part to play, however I feel that the early stages is my weakest point given the results to date.

I am wondering where to look here, as no matter what approach I feel I put forward, it always seems to be that the same players make day two with average stacks or thereabouts, and I only make day 2 or ITM very rarely in comparison.

Even in the deep stack tournaments (200bb start), with 30-60min levels, I feel that I cannot keep up with the average stack and always lead to a point early on where I am feeling the pressure of blinds, or pressure from larger stacks running over the top with larger 3 bets.

So the question or requested guidance here is:
- Is it better to play tighter in the long run early on, with less hands and risking less chips on wider ranges, until a certain stack size compared to average in the early-mid levels?
- Is there an approximate balance of your starting stack, or number of bb portion that can be used for wider range play, then transition to a tighter range upon reaching a certain level of bb or % of average stack?
- How do you manage what the balance is? Using strict GTO or close to, still renders the same results on average?

Essentially, what is the best guidance for early stage MTT's, that would lead to a better success rate of reaching the early to mid stages with an average stack?

Early Mid Stages (Before Bubble)

On the odd occasions where I have surpassed the above challenges, I reach a point of having a decent stack, and this is the part where I really enjoy the game, and feel most comfortable. There is no BB pressure, a lot of the play becomes what feels "structured" and suits my game very well.
Where it falls down is the cooler or the bad beat, which I understand everyone experiences and there is no prevention, however I do believe I need to seek some improvement here.
A couple of examples of recent eliminations in this portion of the game:
QQ Vs KK (40bb)
1.5 average stack, 20% of field remaining, UTG raises, I 3 bet on the button with QQ, UTG All In. During this tank, I considered the stack size and what I would be left with if I called and lost. I would be left with 15bb and considered this to be an ok call, knowing that whilst my stack would be crippled, I could still have a chance to recover. Following this, I also considered the % chances of running up against KK or AA, and essentially it was a coin flip in my head as to whether it would be either of these two hands, Vs AX or a lower pair. Deciding to call, I was up against KK and therefore the previous 8 hours of effort and results were crippled, with an elimination a short while later.

Question: At what point is folding QQ to a pre-flop all in acceptable? Should I have considered it here?

AK Vs 44 (45bb)
Again a 1.5 Average Stack, close to the bubble, I raise pre-flop with AK on the CO, and I am called by the BB.
Flop comes AAQ, where it is checked to me. I believe my error was in checking behind, however was intending to slow play what I thought was close to the nuts. If pre-flop was raised to me, I would never have checked behind, however in this instance, being against the BB, I intended to trap or induce the bluff.
The turn was a 4, where it was again checked to me where I proceeded to place a 2/3 pot size bet, which is called.
On the river, it was an 8, and I was faced with a pot sized bet, which was half my stack, where I was holding a set of A's with the K kicker. After a small tank, hoping I was up against A(low X), I called and was greeted with pocket 4's which gave them the full house.
This was quite a devastating one for me as all I could think was why did I check the flop and not close it out then and there.

Question: Should I have folded here?, noting no 3 bet preflop and up against the BB? Secondly, was it an error checking the flop?

88 Vs AK (15bb) (GTO I believe was correct, but should I have shoved in the first few hands on a new table on day 2)

Following the above hand, the second day of the tournament I was dealt pocket 88's on the button, and was facing a 3bb raise by UTG that was folded around to me.
Noting that GTO outlines this as a shove every day of the week, I did so and was called by UTG who turned over AK. Unfortunately AQAXX was the runout and I was on my way.
I am comfortable that this instance was the right move, however thinking back, it was early on the day (First few hands) and maybe I should have waited to get a feel for the table.

Question: Should I have waited here for a later spot, or did I make the right move?

IN SUMMARY:

To summarise the above, I would really appreciate guidance on how to maximise reaching the middle stages of tournaments, so I can increase the % of play for where I believe I am most sufficient and comfortable at this stage of my skills?

Lastly, during the mid play of an MTT, at what point is it advisable to risk your tournament life, when you have a decent stack, with hands like QQ, JJ, AK and even a set of AAA after all action, similar to the scenarios above?

Thank you all

I find it is critical to increase my stack early on and it is very important to get a good sense of what the other player's ranges are in order to know when to 3-bet wide preflop. I identify with what you are saying and I have loosened up considerably early on, especially when we are short handed.

In general I take big chances early on with draws when the price is right (especially when I am willing to buy back in if it fails). Similarly with bluff catch calls.

When I am facing an opening raise from UTG at a full table it matters a lot what the player's range is. If they are tight (not a GTO/Solver) then I am much more cautious. I have folded QQ a number of times to 4-bets from EP in the last few years. All but one time I was shown AA (the other hand was AKs so it would have been a flip). Prior to that I had always called and basically always lost. Against a young GTO/Solver type though the 4-bet can be A5s or JJ so its a lot tougher. In Prague I jammed a couple of times with QQ and ended up against AK and lost. But I thought I had played it well because the guys I was against were hyper aggro. The other choice is to just call in position but that invites the BB to call and can reduce our chances...

AK vs 44 is a must cbet. Not only because you have an A with a K kicker but because the BB can have a gutter (though with JT they would lose a lot). Because the flop favors our range significantly over BB's range I will bet about 67% pot. The reason to play it this way is for all the times you don't have an A or Q. You will get folds most of the time when BB has a PP. Also checking this flop is a pretty good sign you have an A. If I was BB and you bet the turn and no 4 came I would fold anyway.

I think the 88 hand is a great question. I keep asking myself that question because I just don't win when I jam. 2nd day at Commerce $1,000,000 guarantee $330 entry I had 77 and chip leader raises I jam with like 14 blinds and he has AA. Venetian 2nd day I have 88 EP raise I jam with <15 blinds and I lose (it happened twice, once I lost to KK and once to AK). It has happened a few other times as well with 66-88 and a smallish stack. I just don't have an answer. I get that everyone will say its a jam. But against EP raise I just don't like it anymore. I don't really like calling with fewer than 8x the raise size so in your case 24 bb's because we are set mining without the ability to make enough. I don't like folding because we may not see a good enough hand for awhile. If I did call I would get it in post flop with no AK on the board but again that's a disaster when Villain has a PP > 88. Against a widish range its an easy jam and it will even get folds sometimes. In this particular case I think I might actually fold to a 3x raise from EP because it looks a lot more like JJ than AK (OK this is unlikely to happen because my hands will be moving the chips in before I can think it through but I think we will double up about 35% of the time maybe 40% and our fold equity is very low against UTG 3x raise). Especially early on in day 2 because we have no idea if that is the standard raise sizing for this player. At Foxwoods early day 2 I had TT and guy opens UTG for like 5x and I am UTG+1 so I jam with like 25 bb's. He insta calls with JJ and I go down. In the WSOP Main Event Day 2 pre-Covid I had 88 and about 40 to 50 bb's and UTG raises but he has been very wide and I am absolutely going to 3 bet and get it in but guy to my right 3-bets and I ponder calling or 4 betting and then fold. 8 on the flop of course and both guys are betting a lot against each other so I would have made a ton.

Good luck in Australia. I hope Old Silver chimes in with what is available nearby for potential growth.

Whew, there's a lot here. I'm gonna try to get to as many as I can although they may be broad strokes. And some of them I'm not sure it's possible to answer, while others I don't think I have an answer for, anyway.

This one I can't really help with, because I don't know. I know some of the sites by reputation (and the reputations of the coaches on it) but not much more than that. I did buy one of Nick Petrangelo's courses on Upswing a couple years back and it was generally pretty good and thorough, I thought, although I'm not sure if I could have gotten nearly as much from the right collection of books. He does walk through concepts and lines and the logic behind them well, though.

I've been using Octopi for now because it's free. And having a pretty responsive Discord is nice. But I can't really offer any coaching recommendations since I've not used one.

It depends on the field sizes and all, but six final tables and two wins over 100 tournaments seems like a pretty good run. Possibly running hot if you're not that experienced, but even with the relatively low ITM% those wins should make up for it. What are these field sizes and what percentage of players get paid?

I think whether I'd play tighter or looser in the early stages depends on how I feel about my edge on my table. But I never go far to the extreme. One thing you can do that will help a lot is drill down your preflop ranges for varying stack sizes and positions. You don't have to memorize them perfectly, but if you're pretty close and understand how they change, you'll probably be fine. Position matters more the deeper you are, as does being able to make a nutted hand. So you might, say, throw away ATo UTG at a full table with 100BB but open 76s, but do the opposite at 25BB.

I don't really think about particular goals for my stack anymore or a percentage of it I can "gamble" with before playing more solid. I just try to make the most profitable decision in every situation I'm faced with.

I use GTO ranges as best I can as my baseline, then I'll adjust from there to exploit mistakes players at my table are making (and play wider to play more hands with them if I'm confident I've got a good read on them and know what to exploit).

I also late register a lot of tournaments, so I don't have a ton of early-stage advice. Live, though, generally tends to be softer and more loose/passive, plus more of the worst players will be in the tournament early, so you want to find ways to take advantage of that.

In the hand in question, do you have 40BB and your opponent has 25BB, or is the effective stack size 25BB? If it's the latter, I'd say no, I wouldn't fold it preflop to one player's all-in. At 40, I probably wouldn't either, but depending on how tight I think my opponent is and what he's willing to get it in with, I may just flat-call the initial raise.

How did you calculate that? There are 16 combos of AK and only 12 of KK + AA. And which lower pairs do you think he's shoving?

Being able to accurately assess an opponent's range and your equity against it is a big part of learning to be a good tournament player.

Sometimes, though, you just get bad beat or coolered. At least 15BB is still plenty to come back from.

I think you should always bet this, and if anything it looks like you have an ace a lot when you don't. For one, you're the preflop raiser and this board is great for you, so you should be betting with most of your holdings anyway. You're certainly going to bet hands like T9s here to try to get folds. For two, philosophically speaking, you want to play big pots with your big hands. You can't play big pots with your big hands if you don't bet them. This is a good flop to bet small with your entire range, like 1/4 pot or maybe even less. That small, you're always getting called by Qx and some hands that are in bad, bad shape against you (like JT).

The main takeaway, though, is that you do better in the long run when you get to play big pots with your big hands than when you slowplay them to get a bet or two out on the end, even if you get paid on the latter more frequently.

As far as how the hand actually played out, no, don't fold the river, your hand is entirely too strong and the way you played it villain could certainly be value betting a worse Ax.

I think it's probably fine, although the 3x size is concerning. Unfortunately, this is where being at the table longer could have helped you because it would have clued you in more to UTG's raise sizings and what they mean. But you shouldn't pass a profitable spot just because it's a new table. Even as played you got in on the good side of a flip. Sometimes you just have to win those.

These are pretty broad questions that are difficult to offer specific advice without knowing your game well.

Again, pretty broad and I don't know without knowing a lot more about how you play. I guess try to stick to GTO lines to start-- including 3-betting lines-- while making adjustments against specific opponents to maximize your EV against them. Generally, that tends to work out in any stage of the tournament.

This really depends on so many factors that it's not very possible to answer. Like, if I have 100BB, raise JJ under the gun, and there's a 3-bet, cold 4-bet, and cold 5-bet, I'm folding. If I have 25BB and open JJ on the button and one of the blinds 3-bets me, I'm getting it in. It depends on position, stack depth, and ultimately, as so many things do, what our opponents' range is, or what we evaluate it to be, in the situation.

In general, though, you don't want to be looking for reasons not to get the money in with your good hands in tournaments.

Good luck-- I'm sure you'll have follow-up questions. I know it's not really possible live to get a complete hand history, but a lot of your questions might be better answered by a coach who can review an entire tournament of yours and break down your game.

This is a common thing I see - people asking for extremely broad questions about how to play early, mid, late... should I try to make big stack or should I maintain my stack?...
And it is just too broad to be answered. First you need to focus on the basics.
How much to open on BTN at 40bb deep? What about 15bb, what do we jam and what do we raise? What about LJ open? What cbets to use in CO vs BB 60bb deep on 963r? What about AT5mono or KK5? Whats the difference in 3bet range BB vs BTN at 30bb deep and at 100bb deep? What to checkraise BB vs BTN open and small cbet? How often to probe bet and what sizings to use on different boards? What should I do on BB vs SB limp at 25bb deep?...
This is the stuff you need to go through, traing the basic spots that happen all the time and just play them correctly.

Early game, mid game, late game... all of that is just something extra that will shift your strategies in certain direction. But first you need to drill the basics. Use tools like GTO Wizard or DTO and play lot of hands there.