I've started playing tournaments, both local/live and on Cake.

I really enjoy playing tournaments, as a matter of fact, I think they're even more fun than cash games.

My experience so far is that, when the players are primarily recreational and/or fishy (i.e. in free tournaments or tournaments with a buyin of $3 or less), cashing and/or making the final table is very very easy, but WINNING the tournament is very very hard.

I've either cashed or made the final table in 7 of my last 11 tournaments. All I do is follow one simple rule: Never shove while someone who has you covered is still in the hand. Seriously, all I have to do is wait until I have great cards or good cards in good position, bet normally, fold if someone who has me covered shoves over me, and raise or shove when I have a premium hand and I have the villains covered. If I happen to take down a pot by raising pre in late position, getting 4 callers, having them all check to me on the flop, betting the flop and getting 4 folds, that's just gravy (but that won't happen more than 2 or 3 times, tops). It's so much fun to just sit there and watch everyone else beat each other up. with as many as 4 players shoving on a single hand, often with A7, K6, 99 etc.

As you can imagine, however, by the time I finally GET to the final table I seldom have more than about 10bb, and the players who got lucky early shoving K6o, getting 2 callers and sucking out a boat (or some other ridiculous series of such doubleups) are sitting there with 100+.

I TRY to be the guy who gets lucky early (and that's exactly what I tried a little too hard to do in the 4 tournaments where I DIDN'T cash or make the final table!), but it never works - they hardly ever fold to my bluffs, and it always seems that when I shove over a villain with a PFR of 50+ with something like A9, that's the ONE hand where he has AJ (as opposed to the T7, K9 etc. that he shoved over a villain who haid TT, KQ or whatever and sucked out).

I'd love to be able to honestly say that I'm playing well in these tournaments because I'm "reading" the villains so well, knowing when they're likely to fold, knowing when they're like to bet/have bet a crappy hand etc., but the truth is I have no clue. All I have is patience.

I'm not really asking a question here, just hoping to start a conversation. Anyone else think playing tournaments is legitimately fun? Anyone else find that the role of skill other than patience plays almost no part in tournaments full of recreational players?

disagree. skill will always win out over recreational players in the end.

When you are late in the tourny - 10BB or whatever - are you trying to play normal poker still or just open shoving when a decent spot comes up?

When I'm down to literally 10bb it's shove or fold.

When I'm down to 20-25, if I have a good but not great hand like AT, KJ, 66 I'll limp in in late position, hope I don't get raised but call if I do and there are a lot of callers, and get out of the hand if I don't nail the flop. If I have a strong but not premium hand like 99, TT, AQ etc. I'll usually limp in early position or do a standard raise in late position. If I get raised or shoved over I'll do the best I can to apply what I know about the villains to decide whether or not to call, for example if a villain hasn't played a hand all day and suddenly shoves I put him on AK+. If *I* have AK+, I'll standard raise first in from any position, standard 3-bet from any position if I have enough stack (otherwise shove).

An opponent who understands how to play those stacks will punish your weak play relentlessly. When you have 20-25bb you should be limping very few hands, and not the ones you've listed, at least not against weak opponents. You probably won't encounter many players who will exploit you at the stakes you're playing, but by taking such a passive line you're giving up a lot of value yourself. Hands like AT/KJ/66 are good hands for a 20-25bb stack in late position because you can raise preflop and take it down, or if someone behind you 3bet shoves you can often call profitably, or if they just call you're going to be taking a flop in position against opponents who play fit or fold. A hand like AT/KJ flops well and when you connect with the flop you can comfortably commit yourself to the hand in a lot of cases, while a hand like 66 is fairly easy to play on most boards especially against weaker opponents.

Your strategy of avoiding stacks which cover you is not a good one. You should be playing to maximize your equity every time you play a hand. If that means risking your tournament life for a spot that is clearly +cEV or +$EV then you should take it.

Tournaments are fun but not until you get to middle/late stages. Before then they are quite robotic and boring.

* stop limping
* stop avoiding the weak players with big stacks if you ever want to get a big stack of your own
* yes, do try to avoid big bingo coinflip pots if you think you have a skill edge
* yes, tournaments can be way more fun than cash games!

I've played about 150 low buy-in and freeroll tourneys and find them more fun than cash games, but I'm not finding them anywhere near as profitable. The luck factor looms large in freerolls especially, and it's tough to go deep even if you play "perfectly", as there are so many maniacs that play 90% of hands. In a cash game, you might only need one orbit to isolate a fish and then win his stack. In a cheap tourney, you can't wait around for a monster hand, and there are so many fish that there are usually a few at the table that have you covered, and are ready to put a bad beat on you.

How badly did I play this hand?

Cake - $3+$0.3|100/200 NL (10 max) - Holdem - 10 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

MP+1: 2,805.00
MP+2: 6,975.00
Hero (LP): 5,030.00
CO: 5,510.00
BTN: 5,165.00
SB: 9,320.00
BB: 3,270.00
UTG: 6,255.00
UTG+1: 5,745.00
MP: 5,465.00

MP+1 posts ante 20.00, MP+2 posts ante 20.00, Hero posts ante 20.00, CO posts ante 20.00, BTN posts ante 20.00, SB posts ante 20.00, BB posts ante 20.00, UTG posts ante 20.00, UTG+1 posts ante 20.00, MP posts ante 20.00, SB posts SB 100.00, BB posts BB 200.00

Pre Flop: (500.00) Hero has J Q

UTG calls 200.00, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 1,200.00, fold, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls 1,000.00

Flop: (2900.00, 2 players) A 8 2
UTG bets 400.00, fold

Or this one:

Cake - $3+$0.3|150/300 NL (10 max) - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

SB: 5,975.00
Hero (BB): 5,830.00
UTG: 4,060.00
UTG+1: 6,890.00
MP: 9,520.00
MP+1: 13,005.00
LP: 6,301.00
CO: 3,585.00
BTN: 2,780.00

SB posts ante 30.00, Hero posts ante 30.00, UTG posts ante 30.00, UTG+1 posts ante 30.00, MP posts ante 30.00, MP+1 posts ante 30.00, LP posts ante 30.00, CO posts ante 30.00, BTN posts ante 30.00, SB posts SB 150.00, Hero posts BB 300.00

Pre Flop: (720.00) Hero has Q K

fold, fold, MP raises to 755.00, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 455.00

Flop: (1930.00, 2 players) Q 2 9
Hero checks, MP bets 1,299.00, Hero raises to 5,045.00 and is all-in, MP calls 3,746.00

Turn: (12020.00, 2 players) J

River: (12020.00, 2 players) Q

I hope this doesn't sound mean, since it's not how I mean it, but the first hand is bad bad bad bad bad bad bad. Wow is it bad. Don't ever ever ever ever put 1/4 of your stack in preflop with QJo (why on earth did you raise so much!), and then you just can't go ahead and snap-fold to a bet for what, 1/7 of the pot? Sure he might have an ace, in which case you're screwed, but he might have pocket 3s and wants to find out if *you* have an ace. I'd raise there no matter what if the pot was that huge. Mind you, I'd never be in a pot that huge with garbage like QJo in the first place.

The second hand is different. Against some villains I wouldn't be too excited about flopping top pair, K kicker, and against some villains I'd play it like I had the mortal nuts. So without reads it's a bit hard to say if your play was spewy or good, but it's nowhere near as bad as the first hand, and I think a lot of people would say it's pretty standard stuff. I'd usually call the flop bet and see what happens on the turn though - if villain is bluffing, I hardly want him to stop bluffing or fold his hand, and if villain has a monster, then if I shove I'll only find that out when it's just a wee bit too late, and I'll say goodbye to all my hard-won chips. Reads help a lot in these spots.

"UTG calls 200.00, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 1,200.00"

I'd really like to know the reason why you think a 6x raise is appropriate, when you have 25 big blinds and QJo.
Actually, I don't think there's anything you can say that can explain that. :/

The second hand looks fine I guess. You've only got about 20bb and you're in the bb. Calling on the flop will commit you anyway, so you may as well shove with TPGK. There's not a lot you can do if villain has AK.

On the QJo hand I raised that much because I was hoping he'd fold. Why I EVER expect villains to fold is what I don't understand, they NEVER do, not even for 20% of their stack while they're horribly out of position, when they're being asked to call 1000 chips to win 700.

That's really my point - they NEVER (*$#(*#@$( fold, so what good is skill when the right play for the first 50 hands is fold, fold, fold, now you're already down to 20bb because the blinds increased while the other fish were doubling each other up?

Quite a few things about this:

• if villain is going to fold your cards don't matter. If villain folds preflop, it didn't matter if you had AA or 32o. So you don't want to waste a pretty good hand like QJo on what is essentially a bluff.

• when villains make ridiculously oversized bets, it most often means they want you to fold. Don't oblige them! Call or raise! It's very possible that villain figured you out here.

• it's not clear to me here why villain should fold if he can just click the min-bet button after the flop and you will fold instead!

• if you play at tables where no one folds, then play on the assumption that no one will fold. You don't normally win big pots by getting people to fold anyway. You win big pots by getting people to call (or bluff) with the worst hand. Bet for thinner value against stations and cut back on your bluffs.

• I don't understand what you think "skill" means in poker. Making your opponents fold better hands than yours is only a very small part of poker skill, and the skill there is in correctly deciding whether you can do it and how to best pull it off.

This is probably too advanced

You definitely need to work on your 3 betting game.

Before I respond to the good advice, I remembered one other thing that's so much fun about tournaments at this level - watching the crybabies insulting each other after one sucks out on another. "How the *(@#(*#@ could you call my shove with A7? You're an IDIOT." Happens at least 3 times a tournament .

What are you talking about? How in anyway are the early stages "robotic and boring"? In fact it's the later stages where you often end up with a low M/csi that are more "robotic" but definitely not boring.

Yea i see your point with lower M its shove or fold i just think the early stages are so boring.

H2 with KQ you have 20bb 3b jam

OK I figured out that H2 means heads up, but I didn't figure out M or csi. Help? .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-ratio

The same as Csi.

Btw I'd consider the early stages of an MTT to be far from boring, here you can afford to see flops and get good implied odds on your hands. Plus any edge you may have is more evident here than at any other time in the tournament.

Probably true - thanks for the tip I'll look into that.

Sarcasm notwithstanding, it was stupid of me to think that villain would fold.

I define skill in poker as the ability to identify the most +EV decision in any situation. Simple as that.

IMHO the more information a hero can process in order to make the decision, the more skilled a poker player he is:
- what is your position,
- what are the relative stack sizes,
- if it's a tournament,
- are there rebuys, addons etc. pending,
- how much longer until the blinds go up again,
- how close are you to cashing
- how many villains are already in the pot,
- what are their tendencies i.e. do they fold to 3-bets, fold limps to a raise, attempt to blindsteal with ATC, defend their blinds with ATC, bluff, what are their pre-flop limping, raising, 3betting and shoving ranges by position
- what are the tendencies of the villains left to act behind you,
- are there patterns to their cbetting tendencies and/or post-flop betsizing etc.
- after the flop, what are the odds of your hand improving, and if it does improving what are the odds it will be the best hand
- pot odds/implied odds

I'm sure that's just the beginning.

Also IMHO, the more a player has the ability to not let emotions, fatigue or pressure affect their decisions, the more skilled that player is.




All that said, let me ask this question:
- It's late in a tournament.
- You have about 20bb left.
- You're in the CO with 84o.
- 4 villains have limped into the pot ahead of you.
- 2 of the limpers have much bigger stacks than you, the other 2 have less than 10bb
- It's been very common all through the night for multpile villains to limp, and almost as common for multiple villains to call a 3bb or 4bb PFR.
- All 3 villains left to act outstack you, one by a lot
- You have reads that the 3 villains left to act very seldom raise pre.

I'm assuming that raising or shoving here would be stupid.

Is it +EV to limp along and hope you flop trips, 2 pair or a gutshot? If not, are there circumstances where you would EVER enter the pot with 84o after 4 limpers?

Limping hoping to flop a gutshot? What are you planning to do if you flop a gutshot?

I have trouble imagining a scenario where it would be good to stick 5% of your stack in the middle with 84o in a tournament. You don't flop trips that often (1.5% of the time), and even if you did, in a multiway pot you have reverse implied odds working against you - you can flop trips and get outkicked or be up against a flopped boat.

Do you ever listen to advice? Obv 84o u should fold.

I was going to say, "Dude, don't take it so seriously, I was just making conversation!" However, I raised QJo to 6bb facing a station, so I can't exactly say I never do things as dumb as putting money into the pot with 84o.

I asked the question because in these tournaments villains do this all the time, and I was just wondering if there's EVER a circumstance under which it's a good idea. My guess is they're just hoping to get extremely lucky, or they don't understand just how low their probability of success is.

2.5x should be your standard raise, seeing a flop in position is a great way to chip up. Most check/fold when they miss a donk bet when they hit