A member recently posted this question in the forum, and me being mostly a MTT tournament player, figured I'd try to write a good blog on the topic. My ROI isn't amazing, and I haven't put in a lot of volume this year, but in 2004 and 2005 I had pretty good success in MTT's online. I'm up this year, but not by much, I think my MTT ROI is pretty good on OPR though.

Here's the question:

So heres my problem right now in the later stages of MTTs. I keep finding myself in tough spots where i'm not sure what the right play is when im in like the 18-23 BB range. I know you can never raise fold w < 20bbs so what am I supposed to do w hands like A10-AQ, or mid pairs in middle pos?? Keep finding myself in spots where I feel like a fold is too nitty but a raise is bad becasue its likely to put me in a tough spot post flop and an open shove seems like a bit of an overshove??


- 100mile


100mile, the right answer is, there is no ONE right answer.

The fact of the matter is late-game variance is one of the hardest to deal with in MTT's. If you haven't been running good and playing well enough in a MTT to have a large stack (More than 50BB in the last 20% of the field), then you're going to have to view the rest of the tournament as a war. It's a battle between you and the other players. You want their chips, they want yours. When you watch hands that you're not a part of, pay close attention to who is folding their blinds a lot, who isn't raising when people limp in, things like that. Try to pick out people that limp with big hands. You need to realize these things in order to ever be successful late in tournaments, or else, your more observant opponents are going to pick the table apart and take all the free chips while you sit there watching their stacks double and triple, and yours shrink.

If you can do this well enough, you can raise and shove even wider than A10 profitably, because you know the people you're shoving on either:

1. Play too many hands from what you've seen, or
2. They fold more often than the other opponents at the table that may actually make you show down a winner, or
3. They play too passive in spots where they have limped in or play too passive in the blinds.

Granted, there will be times you shove AQ and get snap called by AA in the blind. Tough luck. It happened to me six times yesterday (well not AQ vs AA, but something similar). There's going to be times people make a stand with K10 vs your AK and whack it, oh well, you built a huge pot and got it in good.

The thing you have to remember though is not to CALL your chips off lightly with hands like A10 or AJ. Don't ever be a hero unless you are 200% (yes 200% OMG!) sure that your opponent is laying it down, or your opponent is full of ****. Be careful in those spots, and only reshove on people you see opening more than their fair share of pots. You need more to call than you need to raise with. (Gap concept, per Sklansky)

Don't be afraid to race late though. I've watched myself time and time again fold hands I KNOW I should be shoving. If when you're about to click fold, you feel something inside you scream "NO OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT," you should probably stick your chips in.

Don't wear your stack down, don't let the blinds kill you.

Be your own maker, and in the end, eventually, you're going to see your results improve.

Good luck, and see you at the Final Table!

So I had started the bankroll experiment and wasn't sure how it was going to work out. Since the first post, the $0 into something experiment is going amazing. I remind those who missed the first blog that I started with $0 and around 5,000 Full Tilt Points. I used 2,400 to earn a token, and played a $26 90-person KO SnG. I ended up bubbling with 7 KO's for $28. Here is a September graph, and up to date October Graph, with a YTD now.

September




October



Year to Date



Hopefully this serves as an inspiration to those of you that don't have a lot of money to start out with that you can build a big bankroll online too in a short amount of time with good play. I was just following rules outlined by Chris Ferguson in his experiment, playing cheap satellites ($2 and $3) and a lot of sng's.

Stay tuned for another update and hopefully it's much larger than it is now. Unfortunately, I had to withdraw $1,100 to pay bills, or it would be much bigger, but the experiment continues!

I started my own bankroll experiment, very similar to Chris Ferguson's, only I was allowed to use my Full Tilt Points. Well, it all started when I won a $26 token in a Full Tilt Point Sit N' Go, I won $28 in bounties in a 90 person SnG, after donking out in 10th on the bubble. Last night, I finally had my breakthrough. I got up over $74 after winning a few $2 sng's and placing in a $3 90-person, then placed 4th in a 228 person $5 tournament. Here is the graph for the last couple weeks for my bankroll (hopefully it loads ):



I plan on playing $5 sngs up to $300, then $10 SnG's and $8 token tourneys.

The goal is $10,000 in six months. Then the sky's the limit, right?

Wish me luck!