Well, I have been playing on this site now for two months and have 1.3 million chips from sit’n’gos and tournaments. What amazes me is that there are still almost 9000 people with more chips than me. Where are they winning them, seeing that most of them play so poorly?
I was doing good for the first month, then I hit a bad patch in which I could not win a hand in any kind of tournament, even in a 1K buy-in sit’n’go I was the first to be eliminated. This went on for days and days, and my chip count was falling and falling.
This was getting really frustrating, and I was in a MTT and down to my last 500 chips and could not win a hand, and threw everything all-in as I had other things to do, and won the hand, then won again, and again, and actually ended up in the money, though not a winner.
Suddenly I was back on the winning track. Sometimes it must just be luck. You can butt yourself out of tourneys by making mistakes, but without a bit of luck, it is hard to win them. One of the biggest mistakes people make in tourneys, no the biggest mistake, is getting all their chips in a horserace against a bigger stack. If you never get all your chips in against a bigger stack when you do not have the nuts, you will win every tournament.
(Of course this is not always possible, but it is what we should be aiming at.)
Tonight I just won a nice juicy 90-player (or was it 70?) tourney for a firsT prize of over 300,000 chips, but here is the hand that turned me from one of the crowd into the tournament leader. See if you can spot where I had a bit of luck.
On the hand before this I was dealt a pair of 8’s in early position, limped, missed, took a small stab at the pot, and then folded as I appeared to be beaten. Now I was under the gun and AGAIN was dealt a pair of 8’s, so I limped again, and this time there came a lovely flop of Ace, King of Hearts, and the 8 of diamonds giving me a set.
I led with a small bet to hook a fish, he called, then on the turn I made a large bet and he called again. On the river another 8 fell, so I made a small bet not wanting to scare off the prey, and the villain obligingly raised all-in. Kaboom! I was now tournament leader and able to assume my favorite role of table bully and persecutor of small stacks and play tricks like raising the big blind, then flashing 6 2 off suit when he folds and hoping that he/she goes on tilt.
I seem to have hit form again and am getting into the money most of the time, except when I get bored or have other things to do and play impatiently.
Here are my current strategy tips:
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Watch the behavior of all the opponents. Monitor their stack sizes. At high blinds it is amazing how often three players will limp in with rags and I will duck when it is damn obvious that the Big Blind is going to raise all-in based on his stack size and prior form.
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Fold most opening hands. Limp small pairs strictly for set mining, but you can call small bets on the flop with them if there are also low straight draws.
If you have a really good hand like AA, KK, QQ, or AK, raise high enough to get only one caller. In Replay Poker tournaments this may have to be very high. Make a large continuation bet on the flop, but if you are called, you probably need to give up or call down the hand. You may be up against a set or two pairs. This way you will usually win decent sized pots at the flop and can stay ahead of the blinds.
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Play out of the blinds if it is cheap for you to do so. If I am in the BB and several players limp, I will often raise to 2 1/2 blinds even if I have rags, just to teach them not to mess with my big blind. If the flop comes with something like a pair of twos I will often bet the flop as they will probably not have limped then called the raise with a 2 in the hand. Anyway, even if you fold on the flop, if there are four other players who called your raise, three of them are going to suffer stack damage, which is good for you.
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Duck when other players get into preflop fisticuffs unless their stacks are less than half the size of yours. Even AA does not play so well in a 3-way hand. I folded AK preflop this evening in such a situation, and would actually have lost all my chips if I had played it against two crap hands. Remember if you are up against two pocket pairs, the odds of one of them making a set and beating top pair is doubled, but beating two hands is always harder than beating one opponent.
In this hand here I actually folded AK off suit, and you will see why.
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/442339811
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If you are going to raise after an early limper, you need to raise high enough to drive off either the limper or the blinds, so you might has well fold unless you have a premium hand or a pair rather than limping with KT, which will make you leak chips like crazy. It is always best to be first into the pot with a raise as you have three ways to win–either everyone folds preflop, the flop hits you hard, or you sense that opponent has missed the flop and you win with a bluff or continuation bet. If you don’t have a plan to win a pot, it is better to stay out of it altogether and let opponents inflict harm on each other.
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If you get down to less than 10 BB, you need to get all in and try to steal the blinds. When the money places are not far away, most players are not willing to call off more than 1/3 of their stack unless they have a premium hand. Players with lower pocket pairs may call you, so better if you have at least one card of T or higher. Sometimes you may pick up a couple of hands like T 2 and raise all in and steal the pot, and on the next hand you pick up AA and do the same thing and someone will call to teach you a lesson. or the flop comes A T 2 and you double up. If you let your stack get so small that no one is afraid of calling your all-in, then it is too low and you have lost your last weapon.
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Avoid calling other players’ preflop raises whenever possible unless it is a single raise and you are in the BB, or you have a premium hand, or a pocket pair that could make a set. Most of the time when you call a raise, the flop will miss you, and then when the raiser makes a continuation bet, and he/she may have AA for all you know, then what are you going to do? Fold, that is what. If the raise is really high it may even be a good move to fold a pocket pair preflop as the combined odds of you hitting a set or having a higher pair than the opponent is not good. Your job is to make easy money when opponents are relieved to fold and escape with most of their stack intact, not to put most of your stack at risk just because you have pocket 8s and there are two overcards on the flop, plus the opponent may hold other overcards that will come on the turn or river.
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Watch the tournament lobby window all the time, keep an eye on the scheduled blind changes, how many players left in before the bubble, which table has the smallest and largest stacks, and so on.
This was a nice hand. When the dealer favors you, it is all good.
