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Waiting and waiting and waiting..........

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  1. hrvat10 hrvat10 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

    Posts: 28
    Joined: Nov 06

    Nov 27th, 2006 (11/27/2006 11:27pm)

    Whats up everyone I am new to this site and this is my first post so take it easy on me. When I play a tourney especially with a large field I like to sit back and wait for some good starting hands due to the fact that there's a lot of fish out there willing to double you up when they hit their top pair weak kicker. The problem I encounter is when a cold deck hits me in the head and I catch absolutely nothing but the blinds keep riseing now I'm stuck because my M gets redicoulesly low and I'm not sure which hands to start playing. I've been thinking of a solution and that would be to start just calling pre flop even with weaker hands especially in position and then betting my opponents out of pots by seeing how they react to certain flops. The downside to this is that I'd be bluffing a high percentage of time which could hurt my stack even if I got called just ONCE especially when the blinds get high. Also harringtons discussion on the "M" was very interesting and SORT of helpful. I say sort of because it doesn't seem to play a big part in online poker. I say this because of a simple example that I'm sure many of you have been in and that is let's say your sitting at the table with about 16K in chips and the blinds are 300-600 this makes your M about 18, 17.77 to be exact now with 16K and those blind levels your usually one of the chip leaders at YOUR table but according to harrington once you fall below 20 you should start to make moves. Being one of the bigger stacks at the table should you really be making moves now that you have control over the table? There are many shorter stacks that will catch a hand when you raise let's say KJs, because you decided to open up a little, they come over the top with their famous all in and now your stuck because the raise allready hurt your stack and you know if you call and they have you dominated you'll be hurting real bad and fall behind and even worse you'll have that hand stuck in your head making you play your SHORT stack even worse. This might be none sense to all you pros but this has been really bothering me I just don't know how to open up the right way I guess. Any help and input would be greatly appreciated.

    Thank You and GL
  2. james_elk james_elk is offline

    Toronto
    Canada

    Posts: 330
    Joined: Feb 06

    Nov 27th, 2006 (11/27/2006 11:39pm) in reply to hrvat10

    wow
  3. McStraddle McStraddle is offline

    Las Vegas, NV
    United States

    Posts: 929
    Joined: Feb 06

    Nov 27th, 2006 (11/27/2006 11:44pm) in reply to james_elk

    A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in a written text dealing with a particular point or idea,or the words of a speaker. The start of a paragraph is indicated bybeginning on a new line and ending without running to the next passage.Sometimes the first line is indented, and sometimes it is indentedwithout beginning a new line. At various times the beginning of aparagraph has been indicated by the pilcrow mark:.

    Hope that helps.
  4. hrvat10 hrvat10 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

    Posts: 28
    Joined: Nov 06

    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 12:27am) in reply to McStraddle

    haha thanks for the help and I'm sorry I guess I should have mentioned that I am not a great writer I figured there would be some great poker minds in here that would get my ideas and maybe elaborate on them
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  5. spooooonger spooooonger is offline

    Irvine, CA
    United States

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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 12:33am) in reply to hrvat10

    this made me laugh out loud
  6. riskybusines riskybusines is offline

    Birmingham, AL
    United States

    Posts: 452
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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 1:59am) in reply to hrvat10

    unreal, guys first post and all anyone can do is flame. As for a comment related to you post hrvat, remember that most of Harrington's formulas apply to major 10K buy in event. Online play is just plain different. Im hardly qualified to suggest the best strategy but i would def keep the difference between online play and Harringtons "M" formulas in mind.
  7. hrvat10 hrvat10 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

    Posts: 28
    Joined: Nov 06

    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 9:15am) in reply to riskybusines

    thanks risky nice to hear from someone other then webster
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  8. 405z06 405z06 is offline

    Fenton, MO
    United States

    Posts: 361
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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 9:33am) in reply to hrvat10

    At 300/600, assuming a 50 ante, your M is actually less than 12. And I've noticed a leak in that I get too aggressive/reckless when my M is below or near 10 since reading the Harrington books.
  9. BomboKlaat BomboKlaat is offline

    Bonmont
    Switzerland

    Posts: 1,030
    Joined: Jul 06

    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 9:35am) in reply to hrvat10

    The best overall advice that I could give you is to get in contact with Jennifear. Spaces.msn.com/jennypoker.

    Jennifear is a low limit sng specialist ($1-$30) whose teachings are transferrable to mtts. She has helped my game out tremendously. The first day I had a lesson I placed 2nd in a FTP $10 tourney for $792. Since then I have two each, 2nd & 1st place, finishes in mtt's, three of which were on FTP the other was UB. I have cashed out 2K in the 6 weeks since meeting her. She has a bit of a wait to get a lesson, but time with her is by far and away the best time and $ investment you could make in your poker career - especially if you are a low level player like me. Please let me know how this works out if you seek her out!! Either way GL at the tables, and welcome to P5's!!

    Bomboklaat
  10. grapsfan grapsfan is offline Head Curmudgeon

    Rosemount, MN
    United States

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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 10:56am) in reply to hrvat10

    This isn't nonsense at all, hrvat. Welcome to P5s.

    This is one of the trickiest issues that comes up in MTT play. You need to keep chipping up to stay ahead of the blinds, but if you're card dead and/or the table isn't letting you steal, what do you do? It's not an easily answerable question, but I can summarize the thought process that I've been using recently.

    You've got to gamble at some point to go deep in a tournament. It's rare that you can just steamroller everyone, or get hit by the deck so hard that you don't ever risk a whole lot. So you're in the middle stages of the tournament, the blinds are 300/600 and your M is 15. You raise with a mediocre hand (let's say Q9 or something) and a very aggressive big stack puts you all in. You can choose one of two approaches:

    1) You can fold and wait again until you get good cards in a good situation...your M might fall down below 10 before this happens, at which point your double-up only brings your M back to where it started, and you'll still have to get a really good run of cards to win the thing. This is the approach of most people who do a lot of cashing, but never go deep (a situation that I'm trying to get out of).

    2) You can gamble as probably a 3:2 underdog. If you win, your M is 30 and you can start applying pressure again because the other big stacks will no longer want to tangle with you. You can put yourself in a position to win the tournament without necessarily getting smacked with the deck. If you lose, well, you were moving in the wrong direction in this tournament anyway.

    The preferred approach is that you're the one doing the pushing with your mediocre hand, rather than calling, but it ends up being the same "I'm gonna gamble here" philosophy.

    Don't think this isn't an issue that even the best players struggle with solving, because I'm pretty sure they deal with it all the time.
     
  11. Cortz Cortz is offline

    Youngtown, AZ
    United States

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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 11:03am) in reply to hrvat10

    i cant read that
  12. UWdeke UWdeke is offline

    Houston, TX
    United States

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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 11:22am) in reply to 405z06

    GOD, ME2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  13. hrvat10 hrvat10 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

    Posts: 28
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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 1:15pm) in reply to Cortz

    thanks to all I guess I should realize that at some point there is no safe strategy and one must simply become agressive and be ready to gamble
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  14. grapsfan grapsfan is offline Head Curmudgeon

    Rosemount, MN
    United States

    Posts: 7,980
    Joined: Jun 05

    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 2:04pm) in reply to hrvat10

    If you want a safe poker game, go play limit Hold'em. No Limit MTTs are not for you.
     
  15. hrvat10 hrvat10 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

    Posts: 28
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    Nov 28th, 2006 (11/28/2006 3:21pm) in reply to grapsfan

    Well I didn't really mean a completely safe game, just by playing this game wether it be limit or no limit we are gambling and should realize that any hand loses at some point. What I am trying to figure out is what kind of hands I can open up with during the yellow zone. Also would it be safer to raise these mediocre hands or just limp in hoping to steal the pot on the flop. Mainly because through my experience many players are willing to call raises with a wide range but are willing to let go of hands when they miss and one puts in a big enough bet to scare them of.
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