Playing opposite poker in tournaments

kevthecelt

I was reading bluff magazine and i read that the grinder and phil laak like to play opposite poker in the first few levels of tournaments when most experienced players play tight and are folding borderline hands.

I personally play very tight and solid in the first couple of levels, then change gears later on and kick it up a notch, and it usually pays off for me, i dont really see how a strategy like the above, would work in big tournaments where there are some completely inexperienced players playing lots of hands that they shouldnt, overvaluing their hands etc? Obviously their strategy seems to work considering mizrachi won the player of the year award. Any comments?

ianmc38

I do this as well. Instead of playing good poker I play like a donk.

aidankk

i like to play a lot of speculative hands early, when the blinds are small for the following reasons.

1. Gives a loose image.
2. Can build chips by taking pots where weakness is obvious.

The loose image is important as when i tighten up around the 4-5 level the callers hopefully will come.. (If im still in):rolleyes:

I might decide on gambling with about 25% of the total chips to play these speculative hands early..

All of this depends on the table , as there is no point in getting caugh up is a raising war with nothing, if there are a few over aggressive players on the table..

Plus its a lot more fun to play a few hands early when its cheap than to sit and wait for the top hands..:)

Now is only wish there was some decent poker in kilkenny to take advantage of this stratagy:mad: :mad: :mad:

Note check out the Kilkenny poker league in the events forum.....

sikes

kevthecelt wrote:

i dont really see how a strategy like the above, would work in big tournaments where there are some completely inexperienced players playing lots of hands that they shouldnt, overvaluing their hands etc? Obviously their strategy seems to work considering mizrachi won the player of the year award. Any comments?

this is part of the reason they will get into pots with speculative hands. you want to be the one recieving their chips when you hit a straight and they think their top pair is good!

ocallagh

I like to play a lot of hands early on. You get huge implied odds against the majority of players in tournaments. You need to be able to drop hands too though...

It works well for large buy-in tournaments with long blind levels and big stacks, but with the structre of most small to medium sized tournys (especially the weekly ones held by casinos), you can only really afford to do this in the first two blind levels. When the blinds reach 100-200 the risk is no longer worth the reward..

kevthecelt

Obviously there are people who think playing loose in the early stages will work for them, I think this applies to players who think they can generally outplay their opponents post flop. But that said, harrington seems to advocate playing insanely tight in the early levels, there are alot of contrasting opinions and results it seems :rolleyes:

sikes

kevthecelt wrote:

Obviously there are people who think playing loose in the early stages will work for them, I think this applies to players who think they can generally outplay their opponents post flop. But that said, harrington seems to advocate playing insanely tight in the early levels, there are alot of contrasting opinions and results it seems :rolleyes:

i dont think the plan is trying to bluff your weaker opponents in the early levels. you are playing 57s etc to stack the weaker players. u want to get into multiway pots cheaply. position is not so much of a concern, for me anyway, at this stage because without a big draw/2 pair they are hitting the muck.

this is fairly irrelevant, but i have found that my limping range in the first few levels, is the same as my pushing range when BB<10

Hitman Actual

For the last year or so I've treated the early stage of a tournament like a cash game (with less BBs in play, obviously), and I've found that it works well. I used to play squeaky tight, but now find that I'm getting to the middle stages with a lot more chips in general.

I don't think the concept of playing fast to build an image really works though, as you're rarely on the same table long enough for your image to work.

ocallagh wrote:

with the structre of most small to medium sized tournys (especially the weekly ones held by casinos), you can only really afford to do this in the first two blind levels. When the blinds reach 100-200 the risk is no longer worth the reward.

Yep, I agree with this.

Gholimoli

How you play the early stages of the tourney depends hugely on your skill level in comparison to the skill level of others on the table and also how the table is playing.
I disagree that in general you should be playing a lot of hands. this is simply not true and those who say that the implied odds are great are sort of wrong.
Your implied odds depends on your opponents and calling a good players raise with QT or 76 does not have implied odds because chances are if the board hits you hard it has missed him and he will not pay you off.
On the other hand if you are playing donks who over play everything and have little or no regard to what the opponent could be holding and only look at their own card (these are ppl who are often willing to go broke with 99 on 8 high board) then you do have good implied odds which allows you to play a wider range of hands.
There are other reasons why you may consider playing more hands such as building a loos image that you can get paid on later or generally advertising plays.
Again I don’t think there is one right or wrong way of playing early stages of a tourney and I think the optimum strategy is to adopt to the table and play accordingly.