Pushing 10 percent edges in early stages - again

[AhabCaptain]

I am the guy who played a very tight game in the beginning of any MTT. The few times I made it to the middle stages with above average chipstack I was unstoppable. Sadly, this happened very seldom.

I am working on changing from the survivalist way to the accumulator way of playing tournaments so that when I do make it deeper I can have a larger stack and do some real damage. Please help me achieve this. I have read threads from the anthology on aggression and early tournament play and found that what I need to do is push all edges 10% or higher. I tried it a couple of times but probably overdid it so now I am trying to fine-tune my actions. What I mean by that is that I am willing to go to the felt in the first hour anytim I believe I am 10% ahead. Please give me some dos and don'ts on the issue.

Here are my observations so far:
Preflop you can go allin against:
- a loose player (allin call range: 22+, A2s+, A2o+, KTs+, KJo+, QJs, QJo, JTs) w/:
44+, A6s+, A6o+, KQs, KQo
- an avg.player (allin call range: 22+, A2s+, A2o+, KQs) w/:
66+, A6s+, A7o+, KQs
- tight player (allin call range: 66+, A6s+, A8o+, KQs) w/:
88+, A9s+, AJo+, KQs
(hand ranges taken from the pushbot-chart, calculations done with PokerStove)

On the flop you can go allin if:
- you are on a draw and you really believe you have all 15 outs
- you have less outs but you believe he will fold anything up to middle pair (folding equity)
- you believe you are ahead and against a draw w/ 11 outs or less
(a draw w/ 11 outs or less is : any straight draw, any flush draw, any two overcards, any pair needing to improve, any PP needing to improve)

On the flop you can't go allin if:
- you're on a draw and you have less than 15 outs and your opp. is loose
- you have more than 1 opponent


I understand that sometimes pushing on the flop is not the best way to extract the most money. Against who would you push?
How many times does your opp. have to fold to make it profitable to push w/ less out?
What about turn play?
In what other situations should you never go allin on flop?

(p.s. I posted this accidentally in the High Stakes MTT section but I think this comes here)

[Soulman]

Ahab,

you seem to be in the typical early stages of learning poker, where you're looking for rules of what to do under <circumstances>. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as that. This goes double for cases like this, where your rules are dependent on number of outs and/or defined calling/pushing ranges of villain. I'm not patient enough to go more into depth :/

[dlwbppd]

These pushbot charts are only for late play (when most stacks are less than 20 BB's). Doing this at the start of a tournament is a quick way to stack off to a monster.

[AhabCaptain]

I hope there are people with more patience on this site. My questions may be general but still answerable.

[AhabCaptain]

I only took the hand ranges from there thinking they might reflect the calling ranges of player types in early tournament play.

[Rocco]

I can only reiterate what Soulman said. You cannot setup rules for what hands to call pushes with against different kinds of players, especially not during early levels. Trust us, we've been in your situation and I was also looking for the easy way to learn tournaments. It took a while, but eventually I found out it was the wrong way to go, and when I abandoned this idea, my game improved. Tournament poker depends on many inputs, and there's no secret formula to making your decisions easy and automatic.

[AhabCaptain]

OK. I might be a newbie to MTTs but believe me I am a pretty successful low limit, shorthanded cash-game player and I can also beat low-limit STT. I remember 2 years ago posting a sheet next to my monitor which contained all the starting hands and what to do with them. Now I find it pretty amusing but still it helped me a lot because there was something I could grasp and go by.

Right now I am trying to find the right looseness and aggressiveness required for MTTs, especially early stages. I thought here I may get some ideas or something to start with but I can see now that no reply in this thread is trying answer me instead it has gone into the direction of only telling me even more general things than my questions were.

I am still waiting for some successful LAG's advices. Thanks.

[Rocco]

Ahab,

Successful LAG's do _not_ follow charts and/or rules. Cash games are different to tournaments, while charts can be effective while learning cash games, there are more important stuff to learn when it comes to tournaments. Sure, Sklansky and Harrington both present some kind of suggestions to pre-flop charts for different situations, but these are more like guidelines to help a player to put starting hands in groups. This is just one piece of information to use when you consider your opponents playing styles (both those who are left to act and those who already have acted), if it's heads-up or multi-way, and what you can expect to flop.

So, I've been around this board for a long time, and I can guarantee you that exactly zero successful players (LAG or TAG) will present a chart to you here in this thread! Take my word for it...

[CobraGoat]

lol at how obstinate you are. you are refusing to stop and wonder whether the real problem here is the format of your question. If you stick with this forum and stick with MTTs you will likely find that in a year or two this post is as amusing as your old hand chart taped to your computer.

in any case.... the bottom line for the first hour of a tournament is to play good poker (jason strasser made a great post about this a month ago), just like you play in your small stakes ring games. if you are able to consistently beat microstakes cash games you should have a big leg up on the majority of the field in the first hour of small MTTs. there is no secret formula for accumulating chips other than getting your money in when you have an equity advantage or recognizing spots that have proper FE or are good places to bluff (for small stakes MTTs, you should RARELY be bluffing beyond cbetting in the first hour).

you have like 20 posts which means that you post no hands to analyze here. your best bet is to come here with specific situations, post them, let this forum analyze and give their thoughts. "is this too thin an edge to push early?" "am i ahead enough here to get it in or continue with the hand?" etc. i understand the gist of your post but in all honesty, its lazy.

unfortunately, you need to put time in here, posting, studying, analyzing, contributing and generally accumulating information. then you go and play tons of tourneys and try to apply the little points you learn not deviating too far off your original style of play. rinse wash repeat.

also if you see someone make a well thought out post or raise an issue you had not previously considered, PM them, pick their brain.

but you will never find a blueprint answer to your original post. i think that would be impossible. good luck and start participating more.

[ssnyc]

response are spot on...formulas do not work...need to base actions and reactions on stack sizes, position and table dynamic...same hand range can be played 3 different ways at three different tables