Tournament play and skill ?

[Bullzeye]

The bottom line here is that it all depends on the other players that a person is playing. Imagine that it is far into the tournament and you have a large stack and you grab onto a hand such as A-10. Lets us say that there is a player at your table that you have observed before and know that he is a tight player that only raises if he thinks he has the absolute best hand. Lets say he raises your fairly high bet, you call, and the flop comes out 10-3-6. Knowing that you hold top pair with a high kicker you bet a fair amount. Well, if this tight player raises you an extreme amount the only thing you can do is fold.(EVEN IF IT IS LATE IN THE TOURNAMENT) What many of you have suggested is to always use your high chip stack to your advantage, and this will sometimes work in bullying the short stacks, and in some situations it won't(as shown). The only situation that I can think of to when you you use your chip stack to your advantage is when you are competeing with a player that is some what crazy and likes to play every hand. Lets say this player has called a high bet to see the flop, if you think this player is weak you could push it all-in to scare him off. But always be careful of your instict because the crazy player could have flopped a monster hand Which could have the potential of really hurting your chip stack. Of course that there is always the possibilty that you are edging up on the final table but have not yet made it, this is when you could use your chip advantage to scare people out.(No one will want to leave so close to the final table).

All tournament theories and stratagies are all situational. In different situations you can push the chips in, or it could be a wise idea to fold, or it could be a wise idea to just plainly call your hand down and see what happens. I personally think that the key to tournament stratedgy is surival, simplae math, and completely situational(as show). If there is anybody that wants to talk further about the subject I suggest to start listing actual hands of play that relate to the subject. There for we can actually respond to when we know what is actuallly going on.

[fungaimike56]

I'm a long time 10-20 limit grinder currently making the switch to cash game small-stack no-limit. I've also just begun to play small buy-in on-line tournaments. I've read Harrington. I'm not finding my new experience in no-limit cash games to be of much help in the small-buyin on-line tournaments I'm playing. Sadly, it's a roundabout way of saying that so far at cash no-limit I suck. Yet, strangely, I have a knack for these on-line tournaments. I just play unbelievably patient--read tight. It's nothing for me to not play a hand for three or four rounds. I'll pick up AQ offsuit in early position and call the big blind but fold to ANY raise. AQ suited in early position, I just limp, call only small raises. I flop the queen and somebody comes over the top of me all in the hand hits the muck. I won't play the top pair top kicker for all my stack. Unless I'm real real sure. Oddly, I will play the hand in cash games and get my ass kicked all too often but that's another story--the whole transition from limit to no-limit is something else. I digress. I guess all I'm saying is I'm folding my way to the money in these small buy-in ($6-$33) on-line tournaments. It's amazing how you can just sit there and wait wait wait for someone to give you their money. You're in position, you've got what you want--AA, KK--and somebody calls your 3 to 8 times the pot bet, or reraises you, and then calls your all-in. And I've folded big slick more times in the last three months of on-line tournament play than I did in ten years of limit--it's only ace-high but guys play it like it's top-set or something. That's it. Once in a while you'll get a free play in the big blind with 2-9 and hit trips on the flop and take the stack from the pre-flop slow played pocket pair that bets out. Small suited-connectors in late position I'll pass on nine out of ten times. Flop a draw, call the 4X pot bet, miss the turn, throw it away to the all-in--do this often enough and your stack erodes to nothing. They're nice hands to gamble with cheaply, as if that's news to anyone, but I can't be bothered. These guys answering your post are all giving you good advice, better than anything I can tell you but that's what I'm doing and it works. Against good players, I guess I'm in trouble but oddly too, in these tournaments you can sort of see who's playing good (read tight) because they stand out in the sea of guys playing more than one or two hands a round. Try folding your way to the money--it's working for me.

[bussto]

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You guys are both wrong.

Some of the replies in this thread are just downright awful.

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[PantsOnFire]

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Im not sure i aggree with POF's say on playing the big stack. I think when a player has a big stack he should stop taking so many chances and let the other players beat themselves.

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Two things. First, I did mention that playing a big stack is a skill so, yes, you can't just loosen up for the sake of playing more because you have more chips. You have to use your big stack as a threat which means you have better than normal fold equity and when you are in a hand against a smaller stack, they may play more cautious allowing you better drawing odds. An when a small stack puts his life on the line against you, it usually means he has it. So in general, with good poker skill, you can use your big stack in a very wise way.

It's the guys who usually get the big stack by being wild that end up staying wild and losing it all back. This is not the description of a skilled player.

The second point is that even as a big stack, you are still susceptible to the increasing blinds. Just last week I found myself in first in a field of 100. I did just as you suggested (plus I was card dead) and within 20 minutes I was in 6th place and only twice as big as the average stack. So it's a double edged sword and skill will help you control that sword.

[PantsOnFire]

I think you have misunderstood some tournament concepts.

When people say the play conservatively early in a tournament, it does not mean to fold all but the premium hands. It means that you don't want to be involved in large pots, especially for all your chips. Most tournament professionals almost never have all their chips at risk in the first half of a tournament. So conservative here means reigning in the aggression, not playing less hands. It also means stealing small pots in position, checking down to the river, folding to all-in bets, etc. To put is simply, you don't need to, nor should you, take chances when the blinds are small. Have you ever heard the advice to avoid coinflips early in a tourney? That's because such a play is a high risk play.

Players who go out in the first or second blind level will never be winning tourney players. They are the ones who will be out or have the chip lead early. And I love those guys because they are willing to keep getting into coinflips but I won't be playing them unless I have them dominated. The first thing I do when I get AA or KK is check out where the chip leader maniac is and make the play that will likely get heads up all-in with him and I know if he has anthing like AK, AQ or 88 or even worse sometimes, he will play with me. And that's why I love him.

See my other reponse to you about big stack play.

Here is an interesting tidbit to chew on: The first day chip leader at the WSOP has never been the winner.

[Dromar]

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You guys are both wrong.

Some of the replies in this thread are just downright awful.

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Yowza!! I agree. I just had to stop reading them after a bit.

Since I'm not willing to finish reading the posts, I can't really give any advice or comments, but I will say this:

Instead of quoting (or misquoting) "pros" and taking their generalized snippets of advice (either in or out of context) to make decisions, you should figure out the right answer yourself and make your decisions because you know they're right, and you know why. It is the single most effective thing someone can do to get better as a player.

[Mcot]

Donkaments are useless.

There is absolutly no way you don't have to run super hot to win any tournement with more than 500 players. Especially online where the feilds are 1k+ no ammount of skill will give you more than a small edge.

No limit holdem is not a skill game as much as you might think. In most cases you will not find yourself allin with better than a 70% chance of winning. These are not good odds when you think about tournaments. Because in a large tournament you must win soooo many of these hands where your 30% to lose, it is almost mathematically assured that you can't win. Obviously there must be a winner, but the winner is going to be the one who wins the coinflips at the end, not the most skilled player.

Folks this is not chess its coinflipping.

[Tackleberry]

Hello all, this is my first post in this wonderful forum! Anyway I´m glad to become part of this community.

According to the former posts: I just saw a short interview with Dan Harrington, asides a tv-recording of the WSOP and he said the following, which I assume to be one of the best summaries for poker tournaments (and which fits perfectly to the post of Mcot):

"Everybody has a ticket (like in a lottery) to win the tournament. The best skilled players may have up to ten tickets, the least have maybe a half ticket."

Ergo - the larger the tournament, the less are my odds to win it ... unaffected by the skills I have.

[Mcot]

Dan is my hero. I think he better than anyone advocates that tournaments are mostly luck based. In his poker he even describes how the different zones effect your abaility to win.

For example in the red and yellow zones he fully advocates open pushing with weak hands. This kind of strategy can be avoided by running super hot in the begining of a tournament to not get short stacked, or by winning a bunch of these coinflips where you open shove and getting a stack back. In both cases a lot of luck is involved.

Things like knowing when to push, knowing when to fold, and ect... are an imperfect science at best. To say these are skills is somewhat wrong.

Over an enourmous sample size of tournaments and against weak feilds you can improve your chances of winning more, but it still requires much luck.

[THAY3R]