Second live homegame tourney

[Gurravasa]

I'm a SSSH-limit player, and I'm playing my second live homegame torney tonight. There are 14 players in two tables. I don't know the payout structure yet but I think 3-4 places will be payed and the winner will get at leas 50%. We start with $5000 in chips and blinds of 25/50. I believe the blinds will be rather small compared to the stacks for the first hour or so, but I don't know the exact structure yet. There is 1 rebuy at some time of the game.

I know 2 players play midstakes NL online and maybe 3 more are decent players. The rest are beginners. I'm a winning limit-player but have little experience of NL-tornaments live. I count odds and read boards pretty well, and skimmed through HOH vol1. My natural style is agressive and I'm used to a lot of action, and the first live nl-torey I played ended abruptly when I got bored and raised 4 times BB pf with 55 from MP and got called by chipleader on the button, then I shoved on a 9-high board (had little more than the pot in my stack) and got called by A9.

I know that you probably hate general questions, I know I do in the SSHE-forum but do you have any suggestions for a good strategy in a game like this?

[Mr.WeakTight]

figure out who's who and react accordingly. that is, who's a beginner? who's a begginer = calling station and who's a beginner moving all in with an underpair? when you're deep you can play some speculative hands like suited connectors and the like. you could also play tight until you figure out what's going on. if everybody is playing tight then loosen up and make stome steals pre-flop or post-flop. if everybody is too loose, play a little tighter and play your big hands aggressively.

[Gurravasa]

thanks weaktight, I tried to follow your advice and think I managed pretty good. I flopped a monster with AK pretty early in the tournament and was able to double up through one of the beginners. Then I navigated myself into 3d without ever being a real contester for the victory.