Late Tournament Fade

[Cknman11 0]

In the last few tournaments I've played they have ended in similar fashion. I'll build a decent size stack and make it late into the tournament. Then the cards will just get cold. I mean 9 2, J 3, etc. With the blinds and the antes going up it doesn't take a long run of these hands to eat into my stack. Then I find myself in an all in or not situation. I eventually have to go all in with a moderate hand, Ax Kx suited, K 10,etc. The last 3 tournaments I have played have ended this way and I've found myself just out of the money each time.What advice could any of you give to get me past this?

[jayboogie 0]

there's no way around this, the way these online tournaments are structured, most players are forced to go all-in or not bother playing the hand at all. It's not realistic to an actual live tournament. the luck needed to win these tournaments is huge. I've found it impossible to get outdrawn and still win a tournament as it really puts a dent on your stack and it's near impossible to recover unless you get lucky. You can't win or place in these tournaments without a huge amount of luck. If you don't get cards, you can't win. What seems to happen is when you get a long run of bad cards, you'll eventually pick up a hand and get called by a better hand. Makes you think the software is rigged sometimes. I've seen KK get owned by AA way too many times. My advice to you is to play aggressive in these tournaments and try to build up a stack, so you don't get in the situation of having to push all-in damn near every hand. Sure, you might get knocked out early by playing aggressively, but what's the difference between finishing last and just out of the money. By aggressive, I don't mean reckless, I mean a lot of aggressive play against the tight players who don't want to be eliminated so early, use this to your advantage. Get a stack and push the table around. A lot of books teach tight play early in the tournament, that may work in a live tournament, but online it doesn't. The blinds go up so fast and you don't start off with many chips in the first place. Online tournaments require a lot of luck to win, without it you won't win.

[t-bone 0]

Jay made some really good points - although I'm not sure the priginal poster is talking about online tournaments. For some reason I thought he was talking about live tournys. Either way, you need to get a big stack ealry to win. If your goal is to simply make it to the money, the textbook "tighty" play will get you far in the beginning, you might double uop once or twice, but you also might miss out on some opporitunities to win some medium and smaller pots. I like to play aggressively in the beginning of tournaments (these are live, usually 60-75 ppl, $30 NL freeze-outs). Really, it makes no difference if you bust out in 50th, or in 11th, either way you don't make anything. I say go for broke man. It's the only way to play :-) . Not stupid aggressive, but play your position and make lots of strong moves early on if you can. If you do end up busting out early, whatever, there's always next time. I used to play ultra-tight in these tournys. The last 5 or 6 times I've gone I changed my style to the more aggressive play, and it has worked very well for me so far. I have had to work on my post-flop play and reading skills, but I've built my stack early i a few of them. I even won one a couple weeks ago. I don't expect to make it to the money, or even the final table every time, I just want to play well, and when I DO bust out, I go with a bang instead of blinding myself to death. It's more fun that way anyways. Then, in the cash games aftertwards, everybody thins I'm an ultra-aggressive player who busted out of a tournament early 8) and they pay off my good hands because I toghten up in cash games.

[Cknman11 0]

Tbone you were right, I was talking about live tournaments. Sorry for not clarifying. For the most part I do play like you were saying. I'm aggressive early on because the blinds are cheap and most people play super tight in the beggining until they can get a feel for the table. As the tournament wears on I get a read for the table and know who I can push off their bet and who I can't.In the situation I mentione in my original post, half way through the tournament I was one of the top players in the chip count. But with the accelerated blind structure and a bad run of cards I quickly went from one of the big stacks to an average stack at best. That's where my problem came in. At that point if I was to raise the blinds it would cost me a good percentage of my stack to do so. So obviously I would want a strong or even moderately strong hand to do so. But they don't seem to come when I need them.Am I playing to tight when it gets down to the end? Or should I just chalk this up to cold cards and stick with what I'm doing?

[t-bone 0]

Definetly chalk it up to cold cards. If it happens more than 7 or 8 times in a row then maybe you have to work on something in your game but 3 or 4 tournys is nothing to worry about.Another thing, when I am a chip leader I really like to bully around the table. Especially the really small stacks. I know this is hard to do if you're not getting any cards, but sometimes even getting caught in a bluff and being forced to call a shortstack allin isnt' that bad, sometimes we get lucky too :wink: Tournaments are all about avoiding coin flips when you're shortstacked, and winning them when you are forced into them. Look at the way Raymer played his big stack in the main event of this past wsop. I can remember one little stretch where he must have won like 5 coin flips in a row, calling allins with hands like AJ/AQ and small pp's.

[jayboogie 0]

sorry about that, i thought you were talking about an online tournament seeing as how you said the blind structure went up so fast. Really I guess in a way it is similar, except the blinds don't go up quite as fast usually and you will be able to play even more aggressively in a live tournament. What's important is positioning, you can be very aggressive with positioning, don't do this out of position. Let's face it, to win a big tournament you need lots of luck. Many times it will come down to a coin flip whether you get eliminated or double up and you need to win these coin flips or you won't get very far. Your situation just sounds like a bad run of cards at the wrong time. Like I said before, the best way to avoid getting in these situations is being aggressive early on and having a lot of chips that you can push the table around with. Sometimes, the cards just won't come to you and you need to accept that. Luck is a big factor in tournament play, so you shouldn't be too discouraged if you do get knocked out, because sometimes you'll just get outdrawn no matter how big a favorite you are.About your playing to tight? That's a possibility. I find that the best time to bully your opponents around with a stack is when it gets close to placing in the money, many players will tighten up and you can take advantage of this by stealing their blinds especially in late position, this will allow you to build your stack up even more.

[SexyStudThang 0]

This is a familar situation to all poker players, so you're not alone!!! We've all had this happen, triple up with Quad deuces in the begining, become chip leader for the entire thing, and then just not look down at any cards and it seems like every time you try to make a play for the antes and blinds someone plays right back at you. Not easy to avoid. It sounds like you're playing in tournaments with high blind attrition, maybe 1000 chip starting and you begin with 25/50 blinds which double every 15 minutes. You barely get a rotation in before you're up to 50/100 and after 18 hands you're blinding off 1/3 of your stack. Maybe not that bad, but it seems like picking up the A/B's has a fairly large impact on your chip position. But I do believe you're strategy is still flawed in this situation. Having been there many times both online and playing B&M I've made a determination: Hands that are marginal early on when you have the chips to play them become terrible, and hands that you dont mind seeing early on become your last best hope. For example...K10 is not a hand you can play in this situation. You're better off with 96 than this hand, simply because a caller is going to be in a dominating position. K10 is a fine hand to play when you have the chips to get jiggy, but when you're just putting it all on the line preflop, K10, Q10, KJ, QJ, A2-A5 just dont cut it. Even KQ, but that one is a little different. You can only be called by a hand that's beating you and you're likely to be dominated, assuming the level of play is at least mediocre. Fold these hands or just consider them taking a stab at the blinds, but I present a new strategy....Obviously all in with any premium hand, most pairs, etc unless you have some oddball action before you enter the pot. But the hands that you need to be looking for to double you up are 8-9, 7-8, 10-7, etc. You may not be aware of this but the hand with the best chance of cracking Aces is 89 suited. You'll start to see better results if you put your money in with these bad hands that arent as likely to be a huge underdog. You're the dog anyway, but trust me you'll see better results playing these hands in your position. Seems weird, seems wrong, seems like you should never listen to me: It's the right way to be. This is all assuming you have a high blind attrition (8-12BBs or less is an avg or just below avg stack)

[t-bone 0]

That's great advice now that I think of it sexystudthang. I'm going to try that next time I'm shortstacked. Speaking of that, one of the last tournys I played in I ended up being shortstacked (blinds were 400/800, I had about 5000 left) and I ended up having to go allin with A7. The BB called me with A8. I ended up hitting a straight on the river but damn, how lucky is that?? lol. I went on to win that tourny too, so that was probably the hand that saved my butt! I'll never go allin shortstacked with A7 again.