blonde poker forum

Hey,

Itt can we discuss thoughts on early live deep stack tournament strategy?

I don't really have much to say or contribute initially, I have mixed both rocky and splashy styles with varied success in both.

Looking forward to some replies.

seeing flops FTW

seeing rivers FTW

thoguht i was gonna get a big sammy mac strat post on how to be chip leader in tournaments.

:(

lol. Have actually talked about this before with some people. My views have changed a fair amount still then, but I still think some are still true.

Most tournaments these days you are going to start 250-300bb deep. A lot of people play so tight at the early stages, or miss them all together but is this actually the right strategy?

I think you can actually make it very hard for an opponent to win a pot with AA/KK etc when 200+ bb deep. If therefore some opens, you 3bet, now you get 4bet a lot of people are exclusively polarised to AA/KK. If playing say 250bb deep, can an arguement not be made for peeling such a wide range? It is very hard for them to call off 200+bb on most flop/turn/rivers unless hit a set or get certain board runouts. Especially now, when people bet so small there is SO much room for maneuverability through the streets. Obviously I am not saying to go banannas at the start of a comp but and start 3/4 betting every hand, but may be an argument can be made for say 3bet calling pre a lot wider range (esp in pos)?

Obviously it can be quite hard to pay £10k for an event, or be backed into it and then do your stack peeling a 4bet pre with 56, calling a J96 board, bet/raising a 4 turn then shoving an 8 river. Also, it's hard to look back at tournaments where you have bust out with no pair no draw after making the 'strongest' of plays and been called down. But likewise a lot of your opponents are going to be thinking this. How many fish want to bust within 1 hour of a EPT and tell there mates 'well i had AA and 4bet some young kid then bet, bet called, check called a QJ759 board.....In a vacuum it sounds pretty terrible to bust with 1 pair on a board like that.

OOP, is where most 4betting will be from, can make some very difficult situations arise. Your oppenent will find it hard to predict what you are going to tdo and you will have a good idea of where you are at at every point in the hand, which is pretty much a disaster for you opponent in NLH when playing this deepstacked.
 
If you look at what hands people check turn and/or river with, often they are checking to try and control pot. If in position, it is then possible to manipulate the pot size so that a river shove is near impossible to call. Like I said, it is very hard/rare to hear of someone busting early on in big-buyin comps with just 1 pair. It's hard enough on dry boards, let alone straightening/flushing/paired boards etc. Not to mention there is always a chance you can hit 2 pair after peeling a 4bet with J3s !!

All being said, it's sooo important to profile your opponent, especially if your going to be attacking top of someones range. No point ^^ if it's against someone who is happy to bust and say 'had AA and got outdrawn'

I'm more talking about attacking the worse players on table in ^^ btw

never too early to get busy

tight but aggressive, that's your style professor

So not trying to play multi way pots passively pre

ya I mean I wouldn't be trying to get people to fold aces but you can take some flops, develop some reads etc. Don't try and win the tourney in level 1!

level 1,

ep opens, mp calls, we're otb whats very worst hand we want to see a flop with?

Assuming some sort of deepstack structure... can't really go too wrong with suited hands more connected the better, I'd call most OS broadway and maybe some connectors. Weakest offsuit ace probably AJ.

I'm peeling as low as 45s here, JTo, AJo, all suited aces and T7s+.

Sm's post was really nice but in the buy ins I play 50-500 there's so much value in just waiting for the hand and just get the easy double with the set etc. Maybe in the higher buyin's the ballistic 4bet strategy is good but I've just spent a weekend in Blackpool with every guy under 30 telling me its softer that the hot 2.20 lol. Shame to bust comps like that with any slightly high variance line really.

This seems about right

To all the min-raisers out there, in a live tournament at around what levels do we start min-raising as opposed to 2.5x for example?

I guess it depends on the buy-in and standard of field too I guess so apologies if my question seems rather vague.

500/1k cos its the first level its easier to minraise than do anything else :D

3x preflop until people have around 20 bb  then I start to min raise

Generally play very snug then loose when people tighten up far too much.

General strat for me but that's for regular casino type tourneys.

100%. I assumed Pads was talking about EPT's etc. Imo in the £500-£1ks just see a lot of cheap flops where possible and make sure you are value betting properly. I learnt the hard way it's a lot easier to just value bet top/second pair against the majority of the field who are going to want visual confirmation that you have made a pair every time as apposed to taking every little spot you think is available

 2c 3c

Surely everything depends on your table draw, if everyone else is being nitty then up the aggro and try to play lots of pots. If you have good/aggro players then just try to use position, if everyone is being station then can either play v tight or call behind with suited connectors and once you hit hard or get a nice draw go mad  :)

I am definitely one for playing as many hands as I can early doors, to get a feel for the table and to see how resistant they are to open raises and bets on all streets on different types of textured boards. You can learn so much about everyone at the table by dabbling relatively risk free in the early stages and you can also give yourself a sort of untrue wild image by opening quite wide early on, getting tight in the later levels but they still have their pre-conceived ideas about you.

I think if we are so deep early on we should be playing quite wide as there is a lot of info we can pick up on people for hardly any effect at all to our stack. Obviously I am not going to be playing wild post flop and relatively abc here, but I would be looking to get to the flop as much as possible.

Can't we just let them battle and find out the info anyway?

This is a poor holding imo

we can yes, Pleno, I just think it is more fun to do it my way.