LOL Razzaments (been reading BBV =\\ )
 

I entered in a 1+.10 Razz tourney today on stars and had a few questions about these...

1) 1st Hour: Everyone is entering pots with Q's up, J's up, etc. Ten and jack highs are common. However, if I have a 9 or above, i'm not playing unless in late position with A2.

2) 2nd Hour: Everyone gets strangely passive. Walks are as common as 5card-draw with Jacks or Better required, rarely does a hand get to 5th street. I start picking off small pots when in LP.

3) In general, I was around 8 BB for the last 20 minutes of my tourney life, where it seemed you just needed one good hand to float to the final table, or a back home with nothing. Are stacks usually that low (relatively) nearing the end? I went out after about 3/4ths had gone home at 2:20 minutes on a suckout when my 6-4 was beat by a 7-5 when he hit a 4 on the river. Would have put me in the top 5.

Re: LOL Razzaments (been reading BBV =\\ )
 

Sounds like a typical $10 or under razz mtt. Your were right to steal during the second hour, by then most of the real laggy players have busted out.

Re: LOL Razzaments (been reading BBV =\\ )
 

Is there any way of making it less painful during the 3rd hour though? Or is it really just the limit version of Push/Fold?

Re: LOL Razzaments (been reading BBV =\\ )
 

Most of the time I end up like you described, having to commit all or most of my chips early in a hand. The few that I've gone deep in have not been like that, or if they were, I was able to double up a few times and then play actual poker. Mostly this is when I am able to gather a good stack early in the tournament, in the first hour, and *keep it* which can be quite hard as in the 2nd hour once hand that goes down badly is 1/2 your stack.

Re: LOL Razzaments (been reading BBV =\\ )
 

Sounds like you're noticing a lot of the important factors in these tourneys. Once you get into the 3rd hour all the stacks get short except for the top of the leaderboard or otherwise the events would take 7 hrs to play instead of 5 (or whatever). As you noted tho, there aren't a lot of multiway megajammed pots at this stage so you can get away from some hands without being pot committed but at some point you may get short enough to just look for a spot to limipush.

Re: LOL Razzaments (been reading BBV =\\ )
 

You might also want to try some double stacked tournaments. Pokerstars has a $10 every evening that's nice, with 15 minute levels. Really you have the same problems except that instead of hour 1, hour 2, hour 3, it's like hours 1-2, hours 2-3.5 and hours 3.5-5 or so.

There's a little more room in the early levels though, which is good. Your bad opponents still will play too fast but you can be a little more patient with them.