1st tourney & question

[ReidDeCardes]

I'm not sure if this belongs in Beginner.

I played my first No-Limit tournament on Friday night. I also had not played No_limit before that day. I had been reading the Ed Miller stuff from GSIHE so I was thinking about it. I played online NL for about an hour just to get use to betting and following GSIHE's reccomendation.

The tournament was at the local Knights of Columbus, so it was a charity event. They listed the payout as being for the last 9 players, top prize being approx. $2400. You start with T1000 and blinds of T25-50.

At first I played very tight, I was getting nothing. I did get AKo UTG and raised 4 times BB. Everyone folded. I noticed that the players at my table raised funny. They would raise 1BB or all in. I'm am far from an expert, but I thought raises should be approx. 3 - 5 times BB. I feel I was a bit passive, other than the AKo hand, but this is a problem I have in Limit when my confidence is shaky. I did a re-buy after a while and they I was moved to another table. I got some hands and think I played them right. My stack grew.

After the break a new player ( Villain ) came to the table with a bigger stack than mine. I think I had built up to T6000 or T7000. Blinds were T500-1000 with T25 ante.

Here's my hand as best as I can remember:

Hero on the button, Villain in BB. 2 people limp. I look down and have AKo. I raise T3500 ( plus the T1000 call ). It's folded to Villain who thinks a while, he goes All In and has a bigger stack than me. It is folded to me, and I call.

Should I have initially gone All In? I am starting to think I should have. Did I want a call?

[rsxpunk]

yes I would just push here, but the raise is ok. Yes you want to be all in here.

[DeeKay]

welcome reid!

A crucial tournament skill is to understand the end game. Specifically, knowing what your 'M' is and how it relates to others at the table.

M is a calculation that divides your chip stack by the amount of blinds and antes before a hand is dealt. It represents how many orbits you can survive until you run out of chips. Without going too into detail, when your M is 5 or less, your first goal should be to shove any reasonable hand, provided you're first into the pot. With a hand like AK and two limpers, you should shove every time. Check out Dan Harrington's "Harrington on Hold 'Em Vol. 2" for more info on this. Good luck.

[ReidDeCardes]

Thanks for the replies. I enjoyed playing No-Limit and playing the torunament. I think I'm going to shift my study in that direction. I still like limit, and will continue sharpening my dull skills, but the focus of study for the next few months is NL cash and tournament.

I have read LGB, and the GSIHE NL section. I think I will start with HOH Vol. 1.

thanks again for the answers and advice