53 replies to this topic

[Alex916F]

so i was reading an article on P5's and it was talking about making moves in tournies to consistently go deeper in them then a straight solid tourny player strat. I consider myself pretty solid/tight. I was wondering what some good bluff situations or moves are very affective in low buy in tournies? I know ppl aren't as sophisticated in these tournies so i know that hitting hands is pretty important in the game. Could someone provide a list with an explaination of some of your favorite moves you use to go deep in these tournies? i feel like i cash a lot but dont go as deep as i could if i got a bit more creative.... what do you guys think?

[navybuttons]

so i was reading an article on P5's and it was talking about making moves in tournies to consistently go deeper in them then a straight solid tourny player strat. I consider myself pretty solid/tight. I was wondering what some good bluff situations or moves are very affective in low buy in tournies? I know ppl aren't as sophisticated in these tournies so i know that hitting hands is pretty important in the game. Could someone provide a list with an explaination of some of your favorite moves you use to go deep in these tournies? i feel like i cash a lot but dont go as deep as i could if i got a bit more creative.... what do you guys think?

there's not really any specific move that is going to allow you to go deeper. if you want to learn to mix it up, play a $.05/.1 cash game and see every flop. you'll really start to see you are able to put opponents on hands and take them off of them. this way you'll also learn when to slow down and when you great hand is second best.

then when you play tournaments you should feel alot more comfortable stealing preflop because if you get called you'll have a pretty good idea of where you stand postflop and how to play correctly. i think the bluff call is much more an imperative in tournaments than in cash games. you need to understand who, when, what flop and action etc. (situations) where you can make a bluff call.

but being a great lag player is not necessarily going to make you go deep in tournaments. you also need to be able to switch gears.

[Flack_attack]

I've been wanting to start a thread about this, but never got around to it. Hopefully there will be some good insightful discusssion. I really need to work on making moves to accumulate chips to put myself in position to FT, as it seems I can never get past the middle of the money in Stars' big low limit tournies.

What has worked for people on this board? Particular strategems or just patience?

[copernicus]

I've been wanting to start a thread about this, but never got around to it. Hopefully there will be some good insightful discusssion. I really need to work on making moves to accumulate chips to put myself in position to FT, as it seemse I can never get passed the middle of the money in Stars' big low limit tournies.

What has worked for people on this board? Particular strategems or just patience?

Patience, position, keeping pots small without the nuts. Avoid big bluffs unless youve seen he villain fold and every street makes sense

[dingas]

Generally, people are hesitant to call off all their chips post flop. It is psychologically more difficult to call for all your money than to push, and it is psychologically more difficult to call on the river knowing that you're either good or dead, than pre-flop when you always are in with a chance. This tendency is easy to exploit by finding spots to make big bluffs. Saying that you should avoid bluffing is silly - if you see a +EV bluffing opportunity you should make the play, it is no different than raising preflop with aces.

Some examples off the top of my head: I am in BB flop comes 10-high, and I flop a flush draw. sb leads for a smallish bet, I call. Everyone else folds. Turn blanks off. He leads again for a small bet maybe the same size as his flop bet or a bit bigger, I re-raise the size of the pot. This is a classic semi-bluff, and there are numerous variations on the theme.

Another one is when it is checked to you in position and the river has completed some odd straight draw, but you are holding jack-squat. Usually you can pick up the pot at this point, but you need to bet like you just hit the nuts, not make a *****-sized bet. The fact is that after checking to you on the river on a hand where no one has shown strength, it is unlikely that anyone will be willing to call a big bet, so you exploit this.

I remember one example when I continuation betted a A4dQd flop in position and was called by the BB. Turn was the Ad - I figured that I might be able to push him off a Q, so I bet again. River was another Ace. He checked, I pushed, he thought for about 60 seconds and folded. (Actually, I realize I played this hand very badly, but it felt pretty good when the chips were shipped my way.)

[Jam-Fly]

I didn't read the previous posts as I am very tired, but

some moves that work in low buy in mtts:
huge overbets on the river (value betting)

then theres kind of moves that dont work in low buy in mtts:
in general, bluffing
slowplaying is dangerous, sometimes better to value bet
small pot poker



as I said I'm very tired, I'll comment more later

[Alex916F]

Patience, position, keeping pots small without the nuts. Avoid big bluffs unless youve seen he villain fold and every street makes sense

to me this is the solid strategy i talked about in my OP. I need methods that effectively pick up dead money

[dingas]

Actually the only solid strategy is to watch your opponents and adapt your play to exploit what they are doing. And play the situations, not the cards. I recently started playing just one table at a time and trying to focus on everything, who's doing what and how to exploit it. My results have improved slightly, but more importantly I'm also enjoying the game a lot more than I did when I was 3-tabling and basically waiting for an over-pair to push with.

[UncleHoot]

to me this is the solid strategy i talked about in my OP. I need methods that effectively pick up dead money

If you're lucky enough to be at the same table for awhile, watch players' betting patterns (calling patterns). In low-stakes, it seems like there is at least one calling station at every table. Try to spot that player right away. Quite often, they can pick up a lot of chips, just by calling players who try to bluff WAY too often. You want them to think you're bluffing when you have the nuts (or 2nd/3rd/4th nuts, etc.).

Other than that, tight/solid is generally good in these, though I haven't played them in quite awhile (other than the PS-180's).

[Jam-Fly]

bluffing, in general, isn't a great idea the smaller the buy in and the earlier it is. In the first half hour, making a bluff of <20% of your stack is a needless mistake. Cont-bets are dependant on your table, but if they aren't working, don't do them. E.g. you raise one off the cut off with AK or AQ and the BB calls. Flop comes 4T8. He check raises you for quite a large sum. Alot of people like to make these check raise bluffs early, so if that seems to be the case, skipping a c-bet or two isn't the worst strategy. Of course, when you hold AA on the ten high boar instead of AK, bet away.


Small pot poker is a good idea if you can implement it. This simply means, keep the pots small without a big hand. I still would play tight aggressive, but keep my post flop bets small if possible. Playing a Gavin Smith style small pot poker generally doesn't work due to the amount of calling stations or whatever and the less amount of chips

A move I like to make (although it seems it's become very popular recently) is the big over bet on the river. You have a very good hand, you think your opponent has a good hand, you think he will call a fairly big bet, throw it in there! E.g. I once had J7s on the SB. I think I may have called a min raise (probably bad call) for 40 total. Flop comes A97. A min bet is thrown in there by someone and I called. Turn is like a 4. Then another small bet (60 or less) was put in I believe. I called. River a 7. So as you can see, the pot has been kept fairly small up until now. I move all in for like 1400. Someone calls me with AJ. Theres gona be times you get screwed but, THAT'S POKER! There's plenty of times a guy will call you off with TP/TK (which is reasonable coz you will sometimes see the all in bluff on the river too)
When you hold the marginal-good holdings like TP/GK, you wana keep the pot smallish, no need to over commit yourself (but obv, this is only a guideline and general strat is the main thing)



No real need for slowplaying unless it's a MONSTER, like a house or quads or nut flush. If it's top two, trips or a straight, people will pay you off so slowplaying isn't needed E.g. Check raising someone may look good, but RE-raising them is better

[copernicus]

to me this is the solid strategy i talked about in my OP. I need methods that effectively pick up dead money

You dont pick up dead money without a lot of risk in low buyins. Stick with the solid strategy.

[DoinSublime]

I just started building through the $1.20 45 man SNG's again (I did this once before from $15 to $100), which I find are fairly easy to make the money in. This is what I have found:

No bluffing unless you really sense a lot of weakness, especially early. The players just aren't good, and these opponents will check raise, or reraise just about anything. I think check raising is one of the first 'plays' people learn: "I'm trapping him!!" TPTK is basically an all in for opponents in these as well. And gutshots, flushdraws, etc. are all raisable hands to these players, a lot of the time for all their chips.

I find my key to what you are asking is to build a big enough stack early on, so that when you get to the middle/later stages, you can use your position to pressure people preflop for a lot of pots, when the players are a little better, and actually fold because they want to make the money/FT.

So I just try to build this stack early on, and concentrate on my opponents ranges of hands. This is really where most of my focus is right now.

If I have a good holding preflop, make a larger raise than normal. You'll get called, most of the time by too many people. If they have 20 in the pot, they really aren't folding unless you make it 100+, if not more. You can't raise AA to 4xBB when the BB is 20 or 30, because you will get 5 callers. Make it bigger. Someone will call. Probably two people. Sometimes more.

When you hit the flop, bet it. As everyone already said, no slowplaying. At all. When you hit, bet, and even overbet it. You will get called. (This is where opponents ranges of hands is important though, and making sure you are confident that yours is better. You don't want to be overbetting Q10 into a Q high board obviously) If you raise with AK and get two callers, and a flop comes K106 rainbow, throw that bet out there. Chances are one of them has a piece too, or even just an ace, and their going all in with it. Ace high is a good hand to these people. I get a lot of my stack from just 3-4 hands in the first hour or so, which usually will put me above 4,000. Because when I hit, I make them pay, and they are almost always happy to do so. The only times this backfires is when someones flops their set and slowplays it back at me.

When I miss the flop, I make a continuation bet of about half the pot most of the time against one opponent, and if I get called, I'm done, unless drastically improving of course. Most of the time though they will miss obviously, and they fold. Against more than one opponent, just let it go.

And then just build from there. Take out those desperate shortstacks that are shoving A6o and 55 and K10.

I say all this stuff about early on because having the stack when you get to the middle/later stages is crucial. Then you can play some poker. Position steals, reraises preflop. At this point, they will fold to some pressure if you have a stack and they aren't holding anything. A lot of them still don't even realize I'm stealing half the time I don't think.

When the tables (as you get down to it) get shorthanded, you need to change gears (as ^ said). Loosen up, and take those pots. (Then tighten back up of course when the table fills, or people start playing back at you, or when your rush just wears off) Having a stack is paramount for this. Create your rush. Don't go nutty, but if you have 10K, you can afford to raise it 3xBB to 1200 at 200/400. I think psychologically too, once the blinds get to 200/400, and your preflop raise is all of a sudden over 1K, it is intimidating to these newer players, even though we know it's still just 3xBB. To them though, all they see is the threat to the rest of their chips.

I'm just talking about my 45 mans really, but I trust you see what I mean.

Long winded, but those are my thoughts. I pulled a lot of this from the 180 guide originally, then I had to 'dumb' it down a little bit for these 45 mans. Because these players really do play that bad. I should have just said read and reread that 180 guide.

Solid ABC tight/super aggressive. Use the action before you and your position to try and read peoples hand ranges going to the flop. This is all I do. And I'm building from nothing ($5) pretty darn quick this way. (2 days, 10 or so SNG's, @ $35) I know its not much, but I started from freerolls.

Anyone that has any advice, please please!



Rebuy (I mean edit) - just a little evidence as to who our villains are, and what they think like:

Board [6c Qc 6h 5s 7c]
Seat 4: eggman909 (small blind) showed [2h 5h] and won (90) with two pair, Sixes
and Fives
Seat 5: DAS2006 (big blind) showed [5d 8h] and won (90) with two pair, Sixes and
Fives
eggman909 said, "lol"
FAMILY GUY said, "7 9"
DAS2006 said, "why did you call preflop with that?"
FAMILY GUY said, "WHY NOT 30?"
eggman909 said, "exactly"

[outsider13]

I just started building through the $1.20 45 man SNG's again (I did this once before from $15 to $100), which I find are fairly easy to make the money in

I started playing the exact same way as you did. I would deposit $20 bucks, play the $1.00 45 mans and the $1.50 turbos. It took me about 8 deposits like this and a lot of reading to finally figure things out. If you want to succeed in lower limit SNG's, you have to avoid playing marginal hands in the lower levels. AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AQs, maybe AKo. If you can see a pocket pair for 1x blind, take it. If you hit it - bet. If not, get out. Later on it gets easier to read peeple, but those early rounds are pretty tough. Everybody calls anything and there is usually 5 people in on every hand. If you do hit a good hand, bet at least 5x the blind. Thes guys will call almost anything, so you don't want too many callers.

Once I won 3 $1.00 45 man sng's in a row, I started trying the $5.00 STT, then the $10 STT & 2 tables. I'm finally up and the BR is about $350. Now I'm trying to learn more too.

As for the middle levels, I lean on poker tracker quite a bit and follow statistics, as well as read the players. Yesterday I had a player to my left who was a 50% preflop raising machine. I had to pick my spots carefully and when I landed an AA in the small blind, I flat called and he raised me 4x the blind. Normally I would NEVER do that, but I knew he would do that because I tried to call before and he stole twice with the PF raise.

I think you just have to pay attention and realize what everybody is doing. Knowing which players are more prone to certain situations really does help.

[Jam-Fly]

wow, thats impressive builing up your bank roll like that.
I started building my br up on stars recently. Started doing hit n runs (im ashamed to say) at .50/1 and 1/2 tables, buy ins from 20-40. This would represent about 20% of my money on the site so it's a bit risky! Did well last night and decided to play in a $60 SNG. There were a few fish in there and I think I'm a good SNG player (altho recent [drunken] results beg to differ) so I thought I'd give it a shot. Then another one with like 4 fish in it began registering. Played that too! So thats $120 of my $260 riding on two SNGs! Thankfully I cashed in both, a 2nd and a 3rd.
That's my weekly crazy story!

[Flack_attack]

(Bump) This is good stuff, guys. Keep it going.

What moves are effective in a large MTT (low buy in) when it gets down to the final 3 or 4 tables? How effective are resteals, etc. ?

[BeaverStyle]

Threads like this are why I love tourney strat.

People tend to not be able to fold any pair. In $4.40's, especially, pretty much expect to double up w/ 77 on a A K 7 rainbow board.

People don't tend to respect reraises. They already have their blind in, and will limp/call with a wiiiiiiiiiiide range of marginal hands. If you have 10 10 on the button with a lot of limpers, a standard raise is not good.

I've found it's important to not get married to decent pocket pairs 22-QQ preflop. With that many limpers, I've found it's almost always a good idea to just limp and hope to flop your set. If you do, with that many people in the hand, it's almost impossible for someone to not flop something worth calling off all their chips with.

TIGHT/AGGRESSIVE is the name of the game. Copernicus' advice, however simplified, is not surprisingly spot on.

I've just started up again after a 2 month break, and so far I've cashed in about 75% of my $6 two table turbos, and have taken 2nd in a $4.40 (woulda won, QQ<55 AIPF) and cashed in about 2 other 3-5 table sngs.



I think this thread has the potential to be stickied.

[Alex916F]

Glad I started something positive.

Flack_attack to answer your question I think one of the best moves you can pull deep in a tourny is the c/r with the nut flush draw (non-paired board). I find that in 180s and any large tourny when ppl spend 2+ hours on a tourny they REALLY dont want to go out like a donk. The nut flush draw c/r is a great play because u know you have the best possible flush draw so you wont be dominated in that regard and you have an over-card, unless you paired your A which means you have a pretty big hand. Say the person does decide to call you, and has one pair w/o an A, well you are merely a 44 percent dog to win, basically a coinflip. all the times that the person decides to fold makes this play a big +EV move in my experience. Definately make sure the person you are doing this move to is deep enough to fold as well as yourself. You also need to make sure the person isn't one of the rare donks that made it that deep and can't fold a hand. It also helps when you have the player covered or would pretty much cripple the dude.

Once ur really deep say 3-2 tables left i believe the resteal from the bb is actually capable of being used. Make sure it is someone who does seem to raise liberally in late position or is really weak. I find in the many 27 man sngs i play the resteal really isnt that affective because ppl just dont seem to steal so when they do get pushed on they are liable to call. Also if a player thinks you may be making a play on them in these 27 mans, even if it's their whole stack they will call you with A4.

[SlackerInc]

I've just started up again after a 2 month break

This caught my attention. What brought on the break?

Oh, also: did that scenario in your sig (with the would-have-been four kings) really happen to you?

[IAGTTAYM]

I think as somebody already mentioned, that being observant is the key. Players at this level have distinctive betting patterns and when you figure them out, accumulating chips will be easy.

I'm also a firm believer in TAG poker early in lower MTTs. In the first 2-3 levels people won't fold anything preflop, nor on the flop, so attacking limpers and being LAG is usually not a good idea. Play along and limp along, keep the pot small and when you do flop da nuts in a multiway pot, BET IT for crying out loud, don't get cute.

When the antes kick in, it's time to go to war. A lot of players don't understand what diffrence a 25 ante at the 100/200 level makes. If you are sitting with a 3600 stack, your M shrinks from 12 to less then 7! At this stage a lot of players have started to become passive and timid. The bubble is coming up! Now your reads becomes super important. Who can you attack? Is it the big stack who limp called a big raise from utg with K2 and put the rest in on a 2 8 Q board? Probably not. If you attack the right players and don't run pish poor, you will often get hold of a big stack going in to the last 20 tables. From there on, you just have to lock it up.

[DoinSublime]

I've found it's important to not get married to decent pocket pairs 22-QQ preflop. With that many limpers, I've found it's almost always a good idea to just limp and hope to flop your set. If you do, with that many people in the hand, it's almost impossible for someone to not flop something worth calling off all their chips with.

Something I took from the 180 guide that I have made a strict rule of is: If there are limpers ahead of you, limp along with your smaller pocket pairs (as you say here). 99-JJ depend on position and situation for me as far as limp/smooth call/raise. You can call a raise up to 10% of your stack, again depending on the situation. The thing I really follow strictly is, never ever open limp a pocket pair. Raise or fold it. The only exception I make to this is the first two levels, when the crazies are doing their thing. I'll limp then, and only then.

I'm thinking about the bluffing more and more as I had said no bluffing, but I just pulled a few off in my last MMT just fine.
I like what Dingas said up top. Maybe discuss a few hands/situations where we can make a good bluff? (Speaking of before antes kick in here)
One I did earlier was: raise preflop with AQs, BB calls, flop comes J10J, two tone. Villain bets 1/4 of the pot, I call. Turn 2, villain checks, I check. River 6, no flush, and villain bets 1/4 of the pot again, I make a pot size raise, he folds.

Thinking also where I sometimes 'feel stuck', is when I go card dead with an M of around 8-12, but the antes haven't kicked in yet (for steal purposes). I always try to stay patient until I wake up with a hand at some point, but sometimes I just keep getting blinded away.

Make some moves? Play that 97s? Forget about the cards altogether and just play the situation and reads? I just have trouble calling 150-200 with marginal hands, when my stack is 1200-1800, and so much depends on whether we hit the flop, and if and how well villain(s) hits the flop.
And it doesn't seem worth it to risk a raise of 450-600 to pick up 300-450 in blinds. (I'd really like to hear people's thoughts on this)

These are the early>middle stages of the tournament where I think you can make, or more often break yourself fairly quickly, but I feel like I need to make something happen.

Thoughts?