Blinds - how should i play it

dvdfan

Hello, im new here and new to poker too, read as much as i could and still trying to take it all in. Ive made a small few pound betting on the $1-$2 games on passy power so i tried 5 single tourney games tonight and finished 5th,4th,4th,2nd and 2nd out of 9 players. Dont know if this is bad or good but i have one or two areas where im unsure and would like to improve.

Ive got the hand now of positioning and realise that late postion is better than early,but what about the blind position, if ive already committed half a blind should i go in for the other half just to see the flop or should i fold unless ive got a very good hand, also is this the case with the big flop too?

Also later in the tournament when your down to 3-4 players folding on blindings can eat your profits if your the underdog, whats the best strategy with this in mind?

And lastly should i change my strategy when im down to 2-3 player, ive noticed i seem to fold more than anyone else, but im a tight player so i only like to play good hands but do occassionally bluff i.e when a few players have already checked and i have an King or ace high card etc, should i bluff more when its in the latter stages as everyone else seems to.

And very lastly, if i have a large advantage on a player, say double his money, then should i take advantage by going large bets on average hands and scare him into folding or just stick to my strategy?

Any help on these questions would be greatly appreciated!:)

ArmaniJeanss

Hello and welcome.
54422 in your first 5 STTs is a very good start, well done.
When you are in the blinds, dont let 'I've already invested in this pot' influence your thinking. There is a certain amount X in the pot, you have 2 cards and either those 2 cards justify you playing on or they don't. Ditto after the flop, forget the chips you have already invested and treat each situation on its current merits.

The less people left in a tourney then the less tight you need to play - with 4 left and 3 getting paid then the game can tighten up as people hate 'bubbling' (being the last unpaid player). This is a great opportunity to steal blinds with any 2 cards. Long term you will get knocked out in 4th quite a lot, but it will help you to place 1st and 2nd a lot as well ( 2 wins and 5 fourths is a lot better than 4 3rds). The more you play STTs you will suss out the scared players on the bubble.
When down to 2/3 players the blinds are generally so high that you have to lower your hand requirements even more, if you don't you will get blinded away otherwise.
If you are chip leader then you can certainly bully, but remember it is better to bully players who have something to lose. E.G if there are 4 players left and you have 10000, 2 players have 3500 and another player has 1000 then you want to bully the 2 medium stacks - they will hate the thought of finishing 4th but the short stack really has nothing to lose and will welcome the chance to double up.

Scotty #

A good place to start....http://www.freewebs.com/pokerguru/onlinestrategy.htm

I think he posts here also.

Drakar

I would disagree a little with AJ's thinking on blind play. You should definately be looking at your cards and saying "do I want to be playing these in early position on the following rounds", but you do also need to factor in the pot odds (the cost of calling relative to the current size of the pot). Particularly at low levels, sometimes implied odds can be important here too. So if it's early on in a tournament, blinds might be 10/20 and stack sizes 2000. If a few people have called there might be 100 in the pot, and you have to call 10 to see a flop from the SB. The thing to remember here is that you do have to hit the flop pretty hard to keep playing.

Obviously later on in the tournament if you have 2k and the blinds are 100/200, you need to look alot more carefully at this situation as the blinds are a much higher proportion of your stack and the implied odds against the other players have reduced.

dvdfan

OK thanks for all the help, im getting the hang of this now bar one or two things. I started trying to be more aggressive and found myself bluffing too much and not knowing when to cut my losses, i also picked up another bad habit of watching people who were bluffing alot and take them on when i had only an average hand eg A2 suited and in the long run i found myself going from consistently placing 3rd and 4th to being 7th,8th and 9th.

So i went back to my old game of being tight, playing the right cards in the right positions and also tightened up some of the hands i played in the early positions as i was getting caught here a bit. Now im doing consistently well in the STT on paddypower, getting down to the money stages alot more, won an STT with a good few 2nd and 3rds.

Also went into a big multitourney the other night (my first) with over 300 people and managed to finish 8th (at this stage everyone was going all in because the first 27 prizes was all the same, a place in some WSOP tourney on the 18th of August) Cant be a bad thing considering the amount of people. Tried 2 small stakes multi tourney since and made it to the top 100 before being knocked out but ive decided now to stick to the STT as im consistently in the money.

Giving my style of being tight although i occasionally lose the plot,what do you think would be my best type of game to be playing on Paddy Power, STT, MTT or money games and would it be good advice to stay away from the money games no limit where you bring cash to the table???

Cheers