Hey guys,

Have been looking around web for advice on deep stack strategy and your forum seems very helpful so thought would give it a shot.

I have recently qualified for an online tournament that is WAY above what I would usually play. I usually play micro stake MTTs and have had decent success winning some with 100-300 players. Also these are pretty standard in structure, 1500 chips 12min blinds etc. $25 MTT is highest I have played in.

Details of event I qualified for:
$2500 buy in
5000 starting chips
30min Levels (starting at 10/20)

I expect it to get about 300 runners. Questions I have:

Am I going to bump into MUCH better players? or just lot of qualifiers?

How is best to play such a slow structure? Should I sit tight early? Or try to pick up chips while other do that?

Any other tips/info/help appreciated.

Thanks,
Adam
UK

Is that the WCOOP ME?

If so it will be a slog 2 years ago after the first full hour, no one was knocked out.

Cash out the T$s or W$s and play a smaller touney.

repoost this in the Tournament forum for more views from tourney players.

I'd think you want to see a lot of cheap flops with suited cards, connectors, Axs, especially multiway and in pos. Deep stacks -----> Implied Odds. Be careful with TPtk and over pairs, not to get trapped into huge pots. As opposed to shrter stacked and lower caliber tournies where worse hands would still be paying you off.

but repost this,

seriously,

I don't have much advice other than cliches, as I've played just one long event and couldn't make it past day 1, after about 7 hours of play. It's a completely different experience from most small stake online MTTs where you expect in 2 hours or so a push fest. I consider myself a disciplined and patient player capable of folding garbage after garbage; however, I found myself completely unprepared for this grind. I realized after 2 hours of play that I had basically gone nowhere, and that, worse, it didn't matter. There was no real sense of urgency because I still held a stack large relative to the blinds. That actually bothered me, because if I had been quiet in a tournament for 2 hours I usually had a low M and was gearing up for pushbot mode. Whereas here I had to stay focused and continue playing like I had just sat down.

And yes the players are much better than those you'll find at the online $10 MTT. At my first table I had a very good player to my immediate left who owned me once I began to lose concentration and play ABC poker. He called every raise I made, no joke, and made great reads on me. I really didn't know how to approach this beside crossing my fingers and hoping the table broke soon (I actually began raising in EP because that was the only time he wouldn't call me, and of course that backfired horribly as the other players woke up with legitimate hands).

Also, just because some players are qualifiers doesn't mean they aren't very good. I mean, they qualified, didn't they? Sure, had to be lucky, but they also needed some skills.

That said how you play really depends on your table. You could draw a brutally aggressive table that punishes limping. Or you could draw a table filled with limpers looking to flop monsters. So tailor your game to your table. Good news is that you will probably be playing with the same crowd for a while so you can establish reads. Pay attention at all times to how your opponents play. Very hard to do after a few hours, though, especially when your table breaks and you have to start over.

Finally, and this applies to every MTT - don't be afraid to go broke. The goal is to get all of the chips and you only do that by putting yours in the middle. Just because the blinds are small relative to your chip stack doesn't mean you should look for reasons to fold big hands. Don't do something like fold bottom set (a player actually bragged at my table that he folded a set within the first 10 hands, I was like wow.......target is like whoa on your back right now). At the same time, don't get married to overpairs or TPTK. That's the advantage of deepstacked tournaments; you can lay down marginal hands you suspect are beaten.

All I've got.

Thanks for the replys guys. Some good advice here.

aucu - This is Leocop Main Event on Ladbrokes Poker (1st October) and I am not able to unregister because I won my seat through 2 sats.

I'll repost in Tourny Strategy.

Thanks,
Adam