O8 tourney at the Bike -- trip report

[Truthiness24]

I played in the $335 limit O8 at the Bike last night. There was a LOT more "name" poker talent than I would have expected for such a low limit event, although most of it was B-list. I saw maybe 20 people out of maybe a 13 table field that I recognized from TV, from WSOP, from Cardplayer, or just by reputation.

(I did sit next to Frankie Odell for awhile, that won Event 44 this year. He seemed to represent the high-end talent -- at least that was what he said. He also predicted his own demise -- he said early and loudly that he never goes deep in low stakes tourneys. Indeed, he was out by level 3, a victim of bad cards.)

I saw a lot of people, people who I thought would know better, know how to play, show really awful cards. I saw tight-weak play, I saw good players act like calling stations, and I saw junky hands from any position. This was happening from the very beginning, well before blind pressure kicked in.

My question is this: were these folks just screwing around, not taking the game seriously because it was only $300, or is there something to be said for playing wide open in a limit O8 tourney?

Note: we started with only 2000 chips but 40 minute levels. It was about in level 4 or 5 when the blinds got painful. Overall, I liked the format for a one night donkament -- few chips to start but long levels.

[Buzz]

Hi Truthiness - Nice trip report. Thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
were these folks just screwing around, not taking the game seriously because it was only $300,


[/ QUOTE ]I don't know. I don't think so, but it's possible.[ QUOTE ]
or is there something to be said for playing wide open in a limit O8 tourney?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not sure what you mean by "wide open."
I think many tournament players play all the tournaments in an event. Some of them may be better at tournament strategy and Texas hold 'em strategy than Omaha-8 strategy.

Buzz

[Truthiness24]

By "wide open" I mean playing lots of hands and playing them aggressively without any reason to. I mean using positional advantage as you might expect late in a tourney when blind levels dictate more of a raise-or-fold mentality.

I also mean giving and getting more action that you might optimally give.

It might be fair to say that the play I saw was that of non-specialists. But I must say that if that is what constitutes general tournament strategy, I'm really not impressed. I expected better play.

I was hoping that someone might explain to me the value of raising 24JJ from the cutoff when the blinds are 50/100 and you're the 2nd one in the pot. I thought that maybe I was missing a point of general tournament strategy. Because for each play that made sense to me, I saw a guy with a large stack pushing around A49Q like it was AA2x.

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
By "wide open" I mean.....

[/ QUOTE ]Thank you. That's what I thought you meant, but I wasn't sure.

I think if you play that way, you take too many risks. If you have the best of it by a 3:2 margin, and if you go all-in once, there's only 40% chance you'll bust out.

But if, looking ahead, you plan to go all-in twice with a 3:2 edge, then there's a 64% chance you'll either bust out the first time or the second.

And if, looking ahead, you plan to go all-in five times, each time with a 3:2 edge, the probability you'll bust out one of those five times is better than 92%. (It's one minus point six to the fifth power with the decimal point moved over two places to convert to per cent).

Of course on the one time out of twelve or thirteen you win all five all-ins, your chip stack will have increased 32 fold, so that you'll be in good shape going into the final table.

What happens, with the blinds and limits continually escalating is that finally at some point the limits are high enough so that you are forced to go all-in every time you play a hand.

But by judicious play, you don't have to go all-in before then. If you choose your spots carefully, you can more or less play so as to gradually increase your stack size without ever actually going all-in. It's pretty hard to get sure things, but that's more or less what you seek - a place to bet where you can steal the blinds or the pot - or a place where you have the nuts - places where the risk of ruin is low.

There's a lot to tournament strategy. Some people are successfully use the "wide open" approach. Others are more successful with the "judicious-play-choose-your-spots-carefully approach. And if you can mix these, occasionally shifting gears, maybe that's even better.

I think there are others who post here who know more about it than I do.

[ QUOTE ]
I was hoping that someone might explain to me the value of raising 24JJ from the cutoff when the blinds are 50/100 and you're the 2nd one in the pot. I thought that maybe I was missing a point of general tournament strategy.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm guessing the person who raised with the 24JJ wanted to play one-on-one with the limper. Did he succeed in getting one-on-one with the limper?

[ QUOTE ]
Because for each play that made sense to me, I saw a guy with a large stack pushing around A49Q like it was AA2x.

[/ QUOTE ]Easy to beat a guy like that in a ring game, but tough in a tournament, because you're risking ruin. Somebody who pushes A49Q is counting on everyone else fearing ruin.

Buzz