Poker Articles

By AawwNutz | Published Dec 22 2005, 02:30 AM
Merry Christmas!  I'm not scared to say it.  Happy Holidays to those of you on a different schedule.
 
I wanted to give a Christmas gift to the Pocket Fives community.  Like all gifts, this one may be something you already have or something you don't really want, but for anyone who has trouble winning the turbo satellite qualifiers into larger events, you may find my gift helpful.  I have, up until a couple of months ago, had a horrendous time figuring out how to play those turbo events.  I really believe that I have found the answer and thought it would be great to share with some of the lower bankroll guys who would like to swim with the sharks in the biggest buy-in events on the web.
 
I have never really liked, nor played, the turbo satellites much because it just wasn't profitable for me.  I felt like my poker skills were better suited for post-flop play, not the turbo shove-or-fold tournaments.  I would end up rebuying too many times and then would bust out a few places from victory.  My old philosophy was basically predicated on the premise that I needed to gamble it up to have a shot.  Any ace was good enough a lot of times, small and mid-pairs were fine.  I would go ahead and play KJo from UTG because I felt I needed to stay ahead of the blinds.  I would call all-in's with hands like AJ or 55, especially against shorter stacks, because I felt like I needed to chip up quickly.
 
A couple of months ago, I decided to try a different turbo satellite strategy.  Since that strategy change, I have been very successful in qualifying for bigger tournaments on the cheap.  When my schedule freed up in early December and I decided that I could go the Bahamas, I started chasing the Poker Stars Carribean Adventure qualifiers.  I relied almost exclusively on the turbo satellites to earn my way into the double shoot-outs.  I payed the full double shoot-out fee only 2 of the 11 that I played.  I played two of the $635 qualifiers and paid cash for only one of them.  The only good thing that came from the entire qualifying process was that I refined my turbo satellite strategy to the point where I earned my seat in 10 of 14 turbos during a period that I was running very badly on Stars.
 
I'm sure you can guess that the change in my strategy was to tighten up.  But, the term "tighten up" doesn't do justice to the way I played these turbos after the rebuy period.  I would fold hands like AQs on the button to an all-in by a stack half my size, because you simply cannot gamble.  A 50/50 proposition, just doesn't do the trick in this type of tourney.  If you lose a hand, you are usually crippled with the blinds pricing others into a call of your remaining stack.  You want to go through the tourney without making a call or being called unless you have a true premium hand. 
 
In a more organized format, I'll share my Turbo Satellite Strategy - please save the bow as my wife likes to reuse them:
 
1.  I look for turbo satellites where a buy-in, re-buy, and an add-on will equal at least 8-10% of the seat value.  If you have to go much further than the top 10% of this type of tourney, you are gonna have to get lucky and win some hands in the late stages to succeed.
 
2.  At the start of the tourney, immediately add-on and look for a good opportunity to double your stack.  Early in the rebuy period, you are looking for a true premium hand.  You could take a 50/50 gamble with 99 or AK, if you were comfortable having to put in two more rebuys.  Late in the rebuy period, you're gonna have to push with something like KQo and get lucky.  I think it's very important to get a double up to allow you the time to be more patient in the 30 minutes after the break.  If you lose your attempts to double up, I would rebuy if you think you have time to still double up.  If you are at the end of the rebuy period, you must decided whether you want to gamble after the rebuy, but generally, your chances of winning your seat are greatly hurt by not coming out of the rebuy period with at least 5 times the initial chip stack.
 
3.  At the rebuy option, you absolutely must rebuy as these extra chips will allow you at least 10 more hands during the critical next 30 minutes of the tourney and can be multiplied into larger sums deeper into the tourney.  I think rebuys are easier to dominate than a freezeout because a lot of people do not take advantage of their ability to buy a big chip stack.
 
4.  After the rebuy period, you must pay more attention to the tourney dynamics than to your cards.  Your chip stack, the stacks of potential opponents, the current blinds, the upcoming increases in blinds, and postion become more important than your cards, unless you hold a premium hand.
 
5.  While you have a reasonable chips-to-blind ratio, you are not looking for a 50/50 race or even a 60/40 edge.  You are looking for the 80% pair-over-pair advantage or an 80% chance of the guys behind you folding to your big bet.
 
6.  If you are in good shape stack-wise, you are looking to push hands all-in against the other stacks in good shape.  Generally, a stack in good shape will not call you with anything less than QQ where a short-stack might call you with A10 out of desperation.  You do not want to gamble with the marginal short-stacks as much as you do in a normal tournament because you have no room to handle the variance of a small edge.
 
7.  Position is key.  If you are UTG, you really cannot play anything except AA, KK, QQ, and AK because any marginal stack that picks up AJ, AQ, or 99 will be pushing on you.  If you are on the button, and both blinds have good stack sizes you should push all-in with any hand because they will only call you with such few hands that there's really not much difference between taking KQs or 108o up against their powerhouse - you are gonna have to get lucky.  You must make sure that the blinds are not priced into a call when you are stealing.  Generally, most people are playing tighter in this tourney, so 2.5x the BB seems to be the auto call point where it might be 3-3.5x BB in a normal tourney.
 
8.  You must stall in these tourneys, but not for the reason that you might think.  When you get down to a few players from the bubble, the blind increases become a weapon.  If there is a player two seats from the BB with 18k in chips when the blinds are 4k and 8k, you need to stall and try to get the blinds to increase to 6k/12k before he hits the BB.  You will basically force him all-in by the time he gets through his blinds..
 
9.  You must make sure that your stack does not get below 2.5x the current BB while keeping an eye on upcoming blind increases.  You need to take preemptive action.  Yes, that means you may have to steal right before the blind increase.  Again, steal from moderate stacks like yours.  Do not steal from short stacks or any stack that you cannot significantly hurt.  All-in is the only play at this point.
 
10.  When you get really close to the seats, you must figure out how many people will be forced all-in by the blinds before your turn to act.  If you have 4 people who will be forced all-in at your table before your turn to act and there are two other tables, you can assume that 12 people total will be facing that situation and about 1/2 of those people will not survive.  When you get in this situation, it is time to make sure that the maximum number of people face all-in showdowns.
 
11.  I cannot stress #9 enough.  Do everything possible to ensure that you will not be forced all-in by the blinds.  This needs to happen to other people but not to you.  Sometimes you will need to act fast as opposed to stalling if it gets you through the blinds at the current level avoiding an increase.
 
12.  Highlights:  You must be ultra-tight.  You must conserve every possible chip.  You cannot call all-in's with AQ and 1010 unless you are desperate.  You can push all-in with those hands when you have significant fold equity.  This fold equity is greatly affected by your opponents stack size.  It is very rare for an UTG raise to take down the blinds in this type of tourney because there are usually several opponents under severe pressure to make a move.  No one wants to bust out of the tourney - so push into decent stacks.  You'll be surprised how seldom they call.  Use the blinds as your weapons, and protect yourself from the blind pressures.  Stall to put more blind pressure on other players, play faster to get through the blinds before they go up.  Do not gamble!  Steal!  Pressure!
 
Again, I hope some of you find this information useful and can use it to qualify into a large buy-in MTT that you normally would not have made.  There is nothing sweeter than feeling the nerves of playing for more money that you have ever before.  I still vividly remember the first time I played a $109 buyin on UB.  I was soooooo nervous that I didn't hardly play a hand.  I was alive and my heart was racing as I was playing with the big boys.  Playing up will improve your game, make you focus much more on the actions you take, and add to the enjoyment of your poker experience.
 
Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Happy Poker'ing, yada, yada, yada.  May your God bless you in 2006.
 
AawwNutz