Part I: WarCraft is fun

During the first few levels, I play a tight-agressive style with very little blind theft unless I see an extremely tight table. If I raise preflop and get called, I'm usually continuation betting, but I don't go crazy and risk getting eliminated unless I know I'm a favorite.

Busting as a 60/40 favorite is a victory; exiting as a 40/60 dog is a huge defeat. Going with this philosophy, I am usually all-in preflop with AK, AA, KK, and QQ during the first hour of the tournament regardless of the action. There's a ton of dead money being tossed around in the first hour and I can accept the risk of running into AA and KK once in a while if it means I get a bunch of calls from AK-AJ and JJ-55.

I requested my sit & go report from PokerStars support and I have only played 10 180s since I got back into doing them. If you've never done this, give it a try: send an e-mail to Support@PokerStars.com and ask for your sit and go report for some period of time. They'll send you back a neat table with a list of all your sit and gos with a net profit/loss number. You can do this with MTTs and even ask for a total win or loss figure for your account at Stars. For the record, mine was like -$1000 before Stars introduced the $22 180-person SNGs. MTT variance sucks.

My results are as follows: 99th, 92nd, 68th, 61st, 52nd, 32nd, 13th, 12th, and 10th. In all three of my cashes, I was in the top 5 in chips when the bubble burst, but did something stupid or just lost a few races. I actually like this distribution, but the sample size is too small.

I sat out for the first part of this tournament. I was playing WarCraft and registered thinking it would never start. It was 2AM CST... can you really blame me? This is everything significant that happened until the 75/150 level. If you see me doing something you wouldn't, don't hesitate to comment and explain why.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx
Hero (t1350)
Button (t1628)
SB (t1675)
BB (t1445)
UTG (t855)
UTG+1 (t2817)
MP1 (t2460)
MP2 (t1805)
MP3 (t1615)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q:heart:, J:club:.
4 folds, MP3 raises to t200, 2 folds

I'd usually fold in this spot anyway, but I think being gone is a good reason to tighten up and observe. I snipped the rest of the hand history after I folded, which is what I'll be doing to save space.

CO (t2550)
Button (t3920)
SB (t4110)
BB (t2175)
UTG (t1450)
UTG+1 (t1975)
Hero (t1350)
MP2 (t1905)
MP3 (t1825)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A:diamond:, A:club:.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t100, Hero calls t100, 4 folds, SB calls t75, BB calls t50.

Flop: (t400) 9:spade:, T:club:, K:heart: (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+1 bets t150, Hero raises to t450, SB folds, BB folds, UTG+1 calls t300.

Turn: (t1300) A:heart: (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t200, UTG+1 calls t200.

River: (t1700) A:spade: (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t600 (All-In), UTG+1 folds.

Final Pot: t2300

We're at blinds of 25/50 and the last four pots have been 3090, 1615, 3305, and 1475. I've seen a lot of raising and re-raising preflop, so I decide to slowplay AA. When I raised the flop, I did so with the intention of shutting down if I got action from the SB or BB. If UTG+1 has me beat, he's gonna break me.

UTG+1 (t2550)
MP1 (t4045)
MP2 (t5910)
CO (t2050)
Button (t1375)
SB (t1175)
Hero (t2300)
UTG (t1855)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J:spade:, A:heart:.
2 folds, MP1 calls t50, MP2 calls t50, 1 fold, Button raises to t400, 2 folds, MP1 folds, MP2 folds.

I don't like calling raises with AJo out of position when I don't have a read and my stack is still decent in comparison to the blinds/antes. Frankly, I don't think I can turn a profit in that spot.

MP1 (t3550)
MP2 (t2145)
CO (t5710)
Button (t1975)
SB (t3375)
Hero (t2225)
UTG (t2355)
UTG+1 (t1865)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J:heart:, 8:club:.
UTG calls t50, 3 folds, CO calls t50, 1 fold, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: (t200) 9:diamond:, 4:diamond:, 8:spade: (4 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t150, UTG calls t150, CO folds, SB folds.

Turn: (t500) 6:heart: (2 players)
Hero bets t300, UTG raises to t2155, Hero folds.

Perfect example of me doing something I wasn't trying before I took a break. Most of what's giving me action on the flop has every opportunity to blow me off of my hand. I think I should have check/folded the turn.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

UTG+1 (t3550)
MP1 (t2145)
MP2 (t5660)
CO (t1975)
Button (t3325)
Hero (t1725)
BB (t2955)
UTG (t1865)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7:diamond:, 7:club:.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t100, 4 folds, Hero raises to t1775, 1 fold, UTG+1 folds.

Raising 3-4xBB and jamming the flop is also an option, but I don't do that very often. Gamblegamble.

SB (t3350)
BB (t2295)
UTG (t5660)
UTG+1 (t1875)
MP1 (t3325)
Hero (t1925)
CO (t3055)
Button (t1715)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K:club:, A:heart:.
3 folds, Hero raises to t1925, 4 folds.

More of the same.

MP1 (t6800)
MP2 (t2245)
MP3 (t2310)
CO (t1725)
Button (t2675)
SB (t3670)
Hero (t2075)
UTG (t2955)
UTG+1 (t2515)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8:heart:, 5:heart:.
2 folds, MP1 raises to t300, MP2 calls t300, 2 folds, Button calls t300, SB calls t250, Hero calls t200.

Flop: (t1500) 2:diamond:, 3:diamond:, K:club: (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP1 checks, MP2 bets t400, Button folds, SB folds, Hero folds, MP1 folds.

BB (t9060)
UTG (t3345)
UTG+1 (t3500)
MP1 (t1725)
MP2 (t2375)
MP3 (t3370)
Hero (t1725)
Button (t2755)
SB (t2615)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q:diamond:, A:club:.
3 folds, MP2 raises to t200, 1 fold, Hero raises to t1725, 3 folds, MP2 calls t1525.

Flop: (t3600) 6:club:, 3:club:, 4:heart: (2 players)

Turn: (t3600) 8:heart: (2 players)

River: (t3600) 6:diamond: (2 players)

Final Pot: t3600

I was willing expand the range a bit for this particular guy.

SB (t8960)
BB (t3345)
UTG (t3500)
UTG+1 (t1725)
MP1 (t3370)
Hero (t3600)
CO (t2755)
Button (t2565)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with 3:spade:, A:heart:.
3 folds, Hero raises to t400, 3 folds, BB raises to t3445, Hero folds.

Final Pot: t3895

I'd like to note that this was the first time I'd raised without the goods preflop. This happened right after I'd doubled up, so maybe he thought I was getting out of line now that I had chips to work with?

Let me know how I did. I might shift over to putting this on my server if nobody likes reading such a long post.

I fold here as well. If they were suited I'd give it a call.



I don't really like the line you took with this. If you are going to slowplay aces, the time that someone only minraised is not the time that you want to be smooth calling. I like a reraise up to say 350 here. I play my aces very strongly in these tournaments and count on them to be good. Too many borderline decisions happen when you play them this slow.



The raise is a bit big, but Iyou managed to chase the limpers out.




I like your flop bet. You've got the information you need - villain either has the 9, a better 8, or a draw. After the turn, you don't like how you stand against any of those holdings. I'll risk giving a free card to a draw in this situation in order to not be dark tunneling.




Interesting line you took here. I think your stack is a bit too large relative to the blinds for this move, but I see the desire to double up. I think this is the type of situation I need to play better...I'd usually raise it up to 400, but then if I make a cont bet on the flop and get reraised, I'm crippled.





I go for a more standard raise here. I jam with the AK if there's any action in front of me, but if I'm opening the pot I'll just bump it up to 3xbb here.




I play this the same.




Yup, I like this jam. The only thing I'm concerned about is that min raises can mean monsters, but you've got a big hand and you're at the point where you need to double.



Yeah...I think this holding is a bit too weak to raise with here - You don't need to be stealing at this point, and risking 400 to win 150 is not the best idea with 4 players still to act behind you.



There were some hands I liked the way you played, and some hands I didn't like nearly so much (particularly the aces). I'd be very interested to learn more about why you took the all-in jam approach with your decent holdings even with a stack of 1.5-2k. I usually play it more 'standardly', but I'd like to know why you thought it was the better way?

Also, the QJo in the first hand is borderline. Sometimes I'll call with it and try to hit big, sometimes I won't.

One thing I'm curious about is whether you were getting dealt any small pairs? If so, how were you playing them?

Not happy with the line either. I think fastplay is best but I was experimenting with the situation. It's pretty easy to be a winner with quads, though.



The converter sucks (can anybody tell me how to use bisonbison's converter to get the suits working with this board?) and it can be misleading because I cut some of the history out. The button raised to 450 and I folded AJo from the big blind. Not a difficult fold, but I'm tight enough from the blinds in the early stages to release AJo even if he puts in a raise of much less... say, 250.



Agreed.



AK from late pos: I'm going to get called by worse hands. In the higher limit tournaments, most players can get away from AQ preflop. Not so with the $22 180-person SNGs. I'm fairly confident that if any of the 4 players left in the pot had AQ they would have called the jam.
77 from the SB: I don't want to raise 3-5xBB with 77 because there are few flops that I like to see. Given that my opponents will (on average) have calling ranges that don't have me in terrible shape, I'm happy to jam and pick up the loose change. I also don't mind flipping for my tournament life in most stages of these 180s.



I had enough chips to finally try to work the table. It was a bit premature to be trying that, so I quit.



I do this in most of my tournaments anyway, but the extremely soft play coupled with the number of 180s that run makes it pretty easy to justify gambling to build up a big stack to try to make a run.



Didn't get any. There are a few later and I pretty much misplayed them all, so you will have plenty of time to make fun of me.

like the rinn said, i'd re-raise the Aces pre-flop. smooth calling a min-raise is just inviting the blinds in. i'd re-raise pre-flop and hope the original raiser has some sort of hand.

im not crazy on the AK push either. im assuming the blinds were 50/100 here unless im missing something. you still have enough chips (an M of 13) to raise this for value.

the attempted blind steal on the last hand is a little bit of reach. unless the guys behind you are pretty tight i'd like to be stealing with something a bit stronger from the hijack. ahhhh, who am i kidding, i'd be stealing there too.

I like therrinn's analysis on every hand but the 77. I complete there and hope to flop a set. Our stack is too big to be gambling for a double on 77 here preflop, and raising it to any amount and then cbing the flop is a horrible idea since we're out of position. This is the perfect time to try and flop a set, imo.

I completely screwed up the quotes in my response to therrinn, so some of what I said got buried.



It was a combination of having just jammed with 77 and also the frequency with which that kind of raise gets called by worse hands. I can certainly raise 3xBB and go from there, but why bother when I can just jam and go with the edge I know I have now? To put it another way, how often are you going to find a player who will only call when my AK is behind in a big way in these $22 180s, and will he be able to call often enough for me to be losing money on the jam?



I don't see anything wrong with trying for a set.

IMO, our stack isn't deep enough to worry about running into a limped big pair UTG. We're risking 1725 to win 250 with a good amount of folding equity, and we may not even match up that badly against the other two people's calling ranges. If I had 4000 and UTG had me covered, then I might have a problem with jamming preflop

Read through this thread for more on flipping in the early stages of a tournament.

Someone could be limping with 8s or 9s, and call that all-in raise of yours. They may have limped trying to hit a set, then when they see the money in the pot they figure they are flipping a coin so they call the all-in. I dunno, I agree with wanting to flip for a larger stack before we approach the bubble, I just don't think I do it here.

i agree with it in the situation you described. i didn't realize that this hand directly followed up with the 77 hand.

but on an average, i would say your 3xbb raise would extract more value in the long run. just my $.02.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried jamming for unproportional amounts in lower buyin tournaments like these? Blinds at 15/30, AA dealt to amarillotg UTG, raise... 1470?

You would be shocked to see how frequently that gets called. It's in the same vein as smasharoo's all-in preflop with AA tactic in NL cash games.



As I said before, there's nothing wrong with calling preflop to try for a set. I take an accumulator approach to these tournaments, so obviously you will see me doing things you wouldn't even consider. It doesn't necessarily make them losing plays.

can't say that i have. seems like even my 3-4xbb raises don't even get called with all that much frequency. maybe im a rock.

i'll give it a whirl next time.

I'm too lazy to search through the big pairs, but I glanced at my stats in PokerTracker with AKo and AKs in the 10-20 level of Stars $22 180-person SNGs.

In 13 attempts, open-raising all-in, I was called 3 times:
AK vs AJ
AK vs 66
AK vs AJ vs KJ (4500 chip pot, believe it or not)