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tourney play strategy?

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  1. xbeastx xbeastx is offline

    Beverly Hills, CA
    United States

    Posts: 22
    Joined: May 06

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 3:09am)

    advice on different tournament play strategy early on...

    should i play tight preflop and play only premium hands?

    or should i donk it up and play any two card starting hands?

    thoughts...
  2. DexterCain DexterCain is offline

    Posts: 13,456
    Joined: Aug 05

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 3:36am) in reply to xbeastx

    what makes more sense to you, playing good cards, or playing bad cards?
    Answer that, and you will have your answer..
  3. Faaantastic Faaantastic is offline

    Highland, NY
    United States

    Posts: 2,746
    Joined: Oct 05

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 3:40am) in reply to DexterCain

    Obv only play soooooooooooted cards

    But yea, you have to mix it up and play some creative hands and look to catch some flops, but I would not recommend playing ANY two cards. Not exactly the way to go.

    But soooooted one gappers are the nuts, remember that
  4. Ariganello Ariganello is offline

    Milford, MI
    United States

    Posts: 1,508
    Joined: Apr 06

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 4:33am) in reply to xbeastx

    Early tourn play tight. Alot of people want to get up quick and then sit on there chips. if the blinds are 10 20 you can see some pretty good flops for a decent price escpically if they stick with the 3 times the blind raise. You dont want to put all in chips in the pot with 77 early tourn. If the UTG raise 60 chips and I have 77 on the button I will call to see a flop but never ever reraise. and only play if you make a set. if the guy has AA or KK and the flop comes 792 you are going to take a huge pot. stay away from playing the K10 suited and the KQ and A x they are good hands but not when there is 5 people in a pot and there not that good to be raising. If you pick up a huge hand and ended up getting sucked out on there is nothing you can do. As long you get your money in with the best hand. Once you start calling all in with A10 verse AK and 44 verse JJ that is going to be a problem. You might get lucky and that is not good because you will start to look at these hands differnt because you won with them. To sum it up play tight early pick hands to steal with when the blinds are worth it. Dont try to steal middle posion when the blinds are 25 50. Push around middle stacks around the bubble. they want to become a low stack they are happy were they are and want to make the money. And once you get far enough in a tourn you need to start pushin when someone you think is stealin your BB go allin most of the time you will win a big pot. Only so this with a decent hand incase you get caught you have some outs. Buy Harrington on holdem Strategy for MTT tournaments
    I wrote a good article on MTT play if you want to read let me know I will send it to you via email
    Later Phil
  5. timzc1 timzc1 is offline

    Vancouver
    Canada

    Posts: 2,262
    Joined: Jan 06

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 5:00am) in reply to Ariganello

    my advice is to play the best way that the table your at "allows" you to play.

    that said, what I find works well is to play a v v v wide range of pockets; keep position in mind, and DONT try to see 40% of pockets!

    play selectively, preflop, but not nec only premium cards.

    you want to have enough of a loose cannon image that when you DO hold AA or you do flop the nuts, a wider range of hands will call your all ins, etc.

    also: beware the gap concept! REALY play tight poker pre flop in order to call any raise. in general, you don't call a raise when it will be heads up with kj or a9s etc (but you might with 22 or 66... depending on stack size and how loose / aggressive the opp is post flop...)

    and I'd say: tighten up post flop, esp. in multi ways. this is a bit of a leak in my game... it isn't easy...

    gl

    --tc
  6. jay_shark jay_shark is offline

    NY
    United States

    Posts: 2,633
    Joined: Oct 05

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 8:12am) in reply to timzc1

    I only play pocket aces and fold everything else . Unfortunately i'm getting bubbled too often .
  7. xbeastx xbeastx is offline

    Beverly Hills, CA
    United States

    Posts: 22
    Joined: May 06

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 6:43pm) in reply to DexterCain

    i view the cards in relation to the community cards...i sometimes like to play pretty loose early and build my chip stacks by seeing cheap flops and hitting big hands (donking it up)...works pretty effective a lot of times, to get a big stack or bust out...

    other times, i'll play tight early and chip away, but a lot of times in these situations i'll end up with average stacks, near money or ITM but not be able to make the FT...

    just wondering what others though of these contrasting strategies...i haven't had time to analyze my game as i play a lot live and am starting to play a little bit more online...hopefully after i got decent amount of hands under my belt i can use PT to analyze...
    Thread Starter
  8. dynamite d dynamite d is offline

    Clarksburg, WV
    United States

    Posts: 434
    Joined: Mar 06

    May 19th, 2006 (5/19/2006 7:42pm) in reply to xbeastx

    low to mid-pocket pairs are golden early in a tourney. limp with them early and call a raise up 5xBB. if you hit, you're winning a big pot. Suited connectors and suited gap connectors can also bring big pots with the right flop and pot odds to the turn and river. Of course, play big pockets with standard raise don't get tricky with them until it's close to the money then be creative. And also called from the BB with any cards if they give you a standard raise (3x or less) there is a possibility of flopping a monster and winning a big pot, but fold if you don't hit it hard. good luck and i hope this helps.
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