Playin like a beeeoootch !!!

The Al Lad

How's it going all....

i've been playin poker about a year now but when playin in a tournament I start playin like a beeeeotch when it comes down to the business end of things, especially in bigger buy ins i.e €150 - €200

first of all I totally tighten up, play alot fewer hands and seem to get blinded down a good bit, now obviously this frustrates me and I leave feeling like I didn't play to my full ability...if thats wat u wanna call it

anyone else do the same thing, wat should I do here to improve my game

thanks

The Al Lad

Rb

Abuse the bubble.

kincsem

All I can say is you meet better players in bigger buy-in tournaments, and you meet better players at the later stages of tournaments. You are probably improving, but there are no magic fixes. It might appear that you are ineffective in the later stages, but you are probably short-stacked when you get there.

DeVore

Every tournament you play in gives you experience of the first 4 levels. BUT not many give you experience of the money area, so while you have a years experience of early levels, you have little experience yet of late levels....

Do you find you are building a stack to keep ahead of the pressure from the blinds? If not perhaps you are not playing the early levels as well as you think because you arent able to continue playing pots later on with comfort?

This is an area of the game where a lot of people (myself included) have trouble, your reads on players become a lot more important because you should be stealing big pots when you can and to do that you need to beat up on the players who are protecting their stack too much.

DeV.

The Al Lad

hi Dev,

i build a decent stack in terms of keeping it at the average or just above, but should I be playing more mediocre hands and playing them more aggressively or is it a case of picking your spots and jamming it all in against people you know u can steal from ??

thanks for the reply's

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

ollyk1

I dunno if this applies OP but a lot of times beginners aren't comfortable playing shorthanded in tournies as they don't have as much experience of that aspect of the game.

Try playing some stts online to get the feel of shorthanded shallow stack tournie play near the bubble. Bascially you need to practise in the situtation and a great way of doing that is a good dose of stts!!


If its an issue that the money is effecting your game then don't play the bigger buyins until you are more comfortable. The games will still be there in a few months time when you've gotten the experience on the cheap.

Olly

P.S. Embrace the variance!

CaptainNemo

The Al Lad wrote:

How's it going all....

i've been playin poker about a year now but when playin in a tournament I start playin like a beeeeotch when it comes down to the business end of things, especially in bigger buy ins i.e €150 - €200

first of all I totally tighten up, play alot fewer hands and seem to get blinded down a good bit, now obviously this frustrates me and I leave feeling like I didn't play to my full ability...if thats wat u wanna call it

anyone else do the same thing, wat should I do here to improve my game

thanks

The Al Lad

I tend to splash around a lot and play loose in the early levels of a tournament, trying to build a stack, but when it comes to the later levels, and close to the bubble, my style changes. I will almost never limp into a pot - if I'm going to play, I want to be raising. When the blinds get big enough there's no more messing around - if I'm going to play, I move all-in before the flop to put the maximum pressure on any potential callers. You have to be doing this with a wide range of hands, beacuse a) you need to steal enough blinds to survive and build your stack, and b) You will never get paid off on your good hands if you tighten up completely and only move in with premium hands.

Warning signs for me come when my stack starts to get to about 7 or 8 times the combined BB, SB and antes. So if we're at 500-1000 blinds with a 50 ante, that's 2000 in the pot if there are 10 players. If I've got 15000 or less I'm going to be all-in or I'm going to fold, and the range of hands I'm going this with is wide.

If someone's already in the pot, either limping or raising, don't play unless you've a very strong hand or they are very loose. If it's folded around to you, you can play with almost anything. Be aware that the more times you move in, the more likely it is you'll be called next time. Basically your dream scenario is move in with 86 offsuit, steal the blinds, move in with A7, steal the blinds, move in with JJ and get called by 99 :cool:

You need to play fearless and not be afraid to get called. Remember 86 is only a 40-60 underdog against AK and has about the same chance of beating KK as QQ does...

ozpoker

IMO, middle to late tourney success revolves around steals and resteals. Every time you steal the blinds, you buy yourself another round of poker to find a good situation to get into. You can only go so far waiting for quality hands.

My definition of a blind steal is any hand that you raise with that you will fold to a reraise. Now, it's nice to have some standards when you steal, because sometimes you just get called and have to play postflop. But weighing the variables (in particular, how tight the big blind is playing) is a bit of an art form.

If stealing the blinds is a good thing, how about stealing the blinds and someone's steal attempt? At the next level of thinking, judging when you can successfully resteal pays great dividends, and is even a trickier skill to learn.

The main thing is to judge the motivations of your opponents to know what you can get away with. Are they trying to survive? Is the next bump up the money ladder important to them. Are they cognizant of what you are doing? Etc, etc.

It's very difficult to become good at these skills, but once you get some proficiency, your tourney results will skyrocket.

-Oz-

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

The Al Lad

cheers lads,

all these replies are well appreciated, Oz, I know u have had a few big/nice wins in the last few weeks (SE €200 + JP Deepstack) so I'm sure your methods are the right ones,

I don't really know of any of the other guys but your views are well appreciated aswell, I will be putting these view's into practice over the next few weeks in watever tournies I play and if I go broke in that tourney taking a chance well so be it,

and just to be a complete donk......wat does variance mean ???

The Al Lad

edit. same post twice

CelticPhantom

The Al Lad wrote:

and just to be a complete donk......wat does variance mean ???

Sometimes you get good luck, sometimes you get bad luck - it varies.

You have to realise that sometimes your AA all-in will get cracked by someone elses 2 pair hitting on the river. Don't get put off / tilt because of this. Next time around it could be you hitting a 3 outer to suck out on someone.

Even if you are the most skilled poker player, you will not win every tournament you enter. Variance means that sometimes you will have upswings and sometimes you will have downswings. These are just part of the game.

zuutroy

What seems to happen to me is I play mega-tight in the early levels, meaning that if I dont come across a premium hand, I end up towards the back of the pack and find it very difficult to come back (though I did win a STT from having 2/3 of a BB left last night!!). When I get into the money, I relax totally and find that this helps me immensly. When other people still have bubble-syndrome going for the win (I'm happy to cover my buyin as I'm still learning), I just trample all over them, raising and re-raising with A-x, K-x, J10 etc. Most of the times I end up winning too.

The Al Lad

CaptainNemo wrote:

I tend to splash around a lot and play loose in the early levels of a tournament, trying to build a stack, but when it comes to the later levels, and close to the bubble, my style changes. I will almost never limp into a pot - if I'm going to play, I want to be raising. When the blinds get big enough there's no more messing around - if I'm going to play, I move all-in before the flop to put the maximum pressure on any potential callers. You have to be doing this with a wide range of hands, beacuse a) you need to steal enough blinds to survive and build your stack, and b) You will never get paid off on your good hands if you tighten up completely and only move in with premium hands.

Warning signs for me come when my stack starts to get to about 7 or 8 times the combined BB, SB and antes. So if we're at 500-1000 blinds with a 50 ante, that's 2000 in the pot if there are 10 players. If I've got 15000 or less I'm going to be all-in or I'm going to fold, and the range of hands I'm going this with is wide.

If someone's already in the pot, either limping or raising, don't play unless you've a very strong hand or they are very loose. If it's folded around to you, you can play with almost anything. Be aware that the more times you move in, the more likely it is you'll be called next time. Basically your dream scenario is move in with 86 offsuit, steal the blinds, move in with A7, steal the blinds, move in with JJ and get called by 99 :cool:
You need to play fearless and not be afraid to get called. Remember 86 is only a 40-60 underdog against AK and has about the same chance of beating KK as QQ does...

LOL

I played in a tourney the night you left this message, folded around to me on the button, I go all in with 3 4 hearts, everyone folded and I showed the bluff

.....the very next hand I'm one of the button, again folded around to me, I look down at Aces, and go all in again knowing that my opponents think I'm playing loose as hell, one guy in the BB looks at his cards, looks back at me with a smile on his face and calls....he flips over AQ and thinks he has the nuts..... and is disgusted when I flip over the aces

I was thinking of this post and laughing to myself at the table

wp:cool: