early stages, low buyin mtt play.

max_power

Anyone got any advice on how to play low buyin rebuy tournies (5e or 10e) being playing quite a few live recently in different colleges and with mates, seem to do alright and hang around for a bit but never have much of a stack or a good finish.

Whats the best way to play when your surrounded by calling stations? (i know people are gonna say play tight and max winnings from premium hands but this isnt easy when blinds are every 15 or 20 mins and people are doubling and tripling their stacks at the same time with rebuys).

I tried the "If you cant beat 'em join 'em" way, attempting to limp a lot early and get involved with really any two cards hoping to get paid off which was effective to a certain extent but also gets messy.

In any of these MTT's with about 50 or 60 runners if you get a decent chip stack by the freezeout stage it's relatively easy to cash. I just need to get that average stack first!

Any advice? cheers.

charlesanto

max_power wrote:

I tried the "If you cant beat 'em join 'em" way, attempting to limp a lot early and get involved with really any two cards hoping to get paid off which was effective to a certain extent but also gets messy.

Never limp, if yer hand is good enough to play you should raise big... you only ever wanto enter 2 (maybe 3) way pots.

LuckyLloyd

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Mr.Plough

i play a feq of these myself, and its true, max winnings from premium hands.

But it really gets tough when you go card dead and dont see a face card in 2 orbits.

most of the players have no notion of any odds whatsoever and will risk half their stack to catch that gutshot.


steal blinds in late position late on as position makes no difference to them either.

basically to get the decent stack your talking about you need to double up once or twice.

tricly to do when you get dealt sh1t hand after hand

cooker3

charlesanto wrote:

Never limp, if yer hand is good enough to play you should raise big... you only ever wanto enter 2 (maybe 3) way pots.

I wholly disagree, I play them as well, in first few levels, limp with lots of hands. The reason being the players are so bad that once you hit your sorted, example of top of my head, I limp with J4, flop is j high, I bet each street and are called down with AT for no pair no draw, he even called me on the river. Now 1 hand doesn't prove anything but that is what people are like. If you know what your doing, out-playing most opponants should be easy

Now in saying that when you get a big hand, raise it up, don't slowplay and keep an eye on betting patterns, people love slowplaying big hands and betting big with crap.

Hitman Actual

How "rebuy-happy" does your budget allow for? It's important that you're funded enough that you're not afraid to get the money in.

I don't agree with the "any-two cards" strategy, but you should be playing a lot more speculative hands: connectors, gapped connectors, high flush cards, etc, but try to play these cheaply preflop, don't be calling big raises (stick to correct poker theory). And then play any draws strong on the flop, but that's why it's important that you're well funded. Also, if the games you play contain a lot of push-happy dudes preflop, get to know their ranges, and get up to speed on what cards are profitable to call with. Be happy to take 55/45 edges if you can get them, but again, this assumes you're well funded.

That post is a bit all over the place, hope it makes sense.

shoutman

I agree with most of what has been said and apologies if I am just repeating what others have already said.

I played a good bit of college poker last year doing quite well if I say so myself.

There are various techniques that work but I think the best thing to do is pretty much sit out the first round or two at your table, playing only near premium cards (and by this, as its a college crapshoot, I mean limping with anypair, hoping to hit a set, up to tens and raising the beejaysus out of everything after that, raise with AJ +,)
In the first two rounds, as with most games undependent of buy in, it is important to check out the table dynamic, normally there is a lot of limping and try to put a finger on those who are staying clear of the limpers. If most hands limpers arent being taxed I'd tend to join them early on with and high suited cards or connecting cards. It is imperitive to get a back stack early otherwise you will have to rely on getting some lady luck and winning fifty fifty's during the freezeout stage.

Most college poker players dont understand pot odds etc and a lot will bet any draw and call any bet if they have a draw so if you suspect someone is drawing bet and bet big so that they dont have near the odds neaded to call the raise( obviously they will call anyway but it should prove profitable over the course of your poker year)

Next I'd like to have a peak at who on the table can play poker, im not talking about those who are brilliant players but mearly those who have a little bit of understanding about odds and the logic behind poker, these are the only players who I would attempt to make any sort of a move at.

Thirdly I reccommend taking any fifty fifty chances early on (if you have the pocket for it) as I said before college poker can get pretty handy if you get a big stack early on as after its a matter of waiting around and picking off opponents.

Finally the last thing I am going to say is beware of the check raise. Check raising is imo probably the strongest play in poker and you should beware of this in College poker as most of the players will not have the ability to know when to check raise as a bluff or semi bluff so the majority of the time they are doing this they have an absolute monster.

Finally dont be surprised if someone checks his option on the bb with aces when six people have already limped.........

Oh and A huge reraise will not mean that players will let go of 10 2o preflop.


P.S. I am a bitter little man.

Brayruit

cooker3 wrote:

people love slowplaying big hands and betting big with crap.

Absolutely true.... but slowplaying also can be effective for you, as players don't tend to be observant and will often bet out when they miss the flop even if you have slowplayed a few hands.

I suggest that you DO slowplay but DON'T bluff - especially early on. Semi-bluffs are fine.

shoutman

Brayruit wrote:

I suggest that you DO slowplay

To be honest I think most of the time slowplaying is a pretty poor strategy as a lot of the time you will get paid off by overplaying your hands as people will call with top pair no kicker.

max_power

cheers lads, i began to notice a lot of the patterns you were talking aboout. In particular things like check/call with monsters, or as was said checking the bb with AA with 6 limpers.

I was in sb with 74s and completed, board A7xx7. BB turns over Aces after heavy betting. Thought i might have been behind with my kicker but really didnt expect AA.

I'll take a bit of the advice on board and hopefully get a few cards early nxt time, cheers. We haven't been doing that bad anyway, out of 4 of us, 2 who aren't in trinity but just play poker there. One of us has cashed every week at least. Not all bad.

Flushdraw

I like to gamble early on it the cheap multi rebuys. I think the best way to accumulate chips is the re-raise. If blinds are 25/50 and theres a raise to 200 with a caller or 2, ship it all in and try and get heads up with one opponent. I'll do this with AK-AJ,77+.I'll also move with less if theres 5 or 6 callers to a raise and i'm in LP. If you lose so be it,just buyin and start again, especially if its a staggered buy in (1000 1st buyin, 1500 2nd and so on) because a lot of the time, players that raise with small pairs or a suited connectors wont let them go once theres money in the pot so you might aswel make them play for their stack preflop. Even if you dont get called, 2 or 3 steals can be very profitable. Be prepared to allow about 5 buyins so youre not gambling with scared money.

If you get up to about 5-6 times your original starting stack you can change your strategy to suit the dynamic of the table but i gamble until i get a large amount of chips because the game really only starts once the rebuy period is finished. If you can get up to about 8-9 times your original stack by then, you should be able to use your stack to push the table around a bit and go on to cash in the tournie.

Brayruit

shoutman wrote:

To be honest I think most of the time slowplaying is a pretty poor strategy as a lot of the time you will get paid off by overplaying your hands as people will call with top pair no kicker.

Hmmmmmm.... depends on the opposition. My experience in pub tournaments (not necessarily the same as college I suppose - but buy in in the same ballpark) is that big check raises with a strong hand on the flop work over and over and over again - even against the same player, you will get called a lot and will have a good chance of stacking the opposition.

cooker3

Brayruit wrote:

Hmmmmmm.... depends on the opposition. My experience in pub tournaments (not necessarily the same as college I suppose - but buy in in the same ballpark) is that big check raises with a strong hand on the flop work over and over and over again - even against the same player, you will get called a lot and will have a good chance of stacking the opposition.

Either works in terms that bad players will call you down no matter what with there middle pair hands whether you bet out or check raising. I prefer betting out purely because your relying on them to bet for you and your in danger of giving free card but if the opponant is the sort of person who bets at every opportunity and will call the check raise then this works out nicely as you get more money in the pot early.

LuckyLloyd

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phantom_lord

Learning chip tricks is always good for that intimidtion factor when you need it

Mr.Plough

phantom_lord wrote:

Learning chip tricks is always good for that intimidtion factor when you need it

yeah love watching people in the dcu freezouts carefully placing one chip on top of the other to a stack of 10, and smoothly pushing them together when someone looks at them.

Brayruit

phantom_lord wrote:

Learning chip tricks is always good for that intimidtion factor when you need it

Important advice: Do not try chip tricks that you saw on the telly for the first time when you are sitting at the table.

phantom_lord

Mr.Plough wrote:

yeah love watching people in the dcu freezouts carefully placing one chip on top of the other to a stack of 10, and smoothly pushing them together when someone looks at them.

Dcu? I must have played with you so.

mportant advice: Do not try chip tricks that you saw on the telly for the first time when you are sitting at the table.

lol. that'd just be silly.

cooker3

phantom_lord wrote:

Dcu? I must have played with you so.

So must I, reveal yourself tonight at pokersoc!

phantom_lord

cooker3 wrote:

So must I, reveal yourself tonight at pokersoc!

Forgot that was on, thanks rob. Now, to put all this theory into action!



what time btw?

cooker3

phantom_lord wrote:

Forgot that was on, thanks rob. Now, to put all this theory into action!



what time btw?

where were you then, it was 7. I did crap.
If I followed advice here I would have done better, raise when you get good hands, bah!