Poker tourney strategy

Matt24 · May 6, 2004

Had this posted in the poker room, but not many looks down there

Looking for your guy's opinion on how to play in this tourney. The location is a bar and the players are bad. 27 people in, $25 buy in. $25 rebuys in the first hour if you are under 100 chips. You start with 250 chips with blinds at 5-10 in first half hour, 10-20 2nd half hour. I estimate I am one of the top 3 players in the room worst case. There were 35 rebuys last night, one guy at my table bought in 7 times. At the end of the first hour most people add on another 150 chips for $15. So Now the prize pool is approaching $2000. They pay out 6 places.

These guys call people all ins with their QJ, and theyll go all in with A no kicker if they flop top pair, 3 guys with the ace no kicker all went in last nigh on same pot. 3 guys in one pot all all in, not uncommon. Its nuts.

My strategy for this in the future is to buy in once, try to get some chips early, and dont do a add-on especially if I can get to over 1000 chips in the first hour, and if I bust out go home $25 poorer. what do you guys think?

theswami · May 6, 2004

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Matt24:
SNIP....I estimate I am one of the top 3 players in the room worst case. ....SNIP<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

WOW.....If the above is in fact true, my intuition says you should always rebuy and add-on since you are playing with an edge and positive EV for every $ you invest.

With that said, I HATE rebuys. While the bad players get to add more dead money to the pool when they lose, I hate the idea of a few of them getting lucky and tossing around a big stack.

By the way, how did you do last night? Keep in mind that that AA is not as strong as you think in multiway pots with three guys chasing you.

Matt24 · May 6, 2004

My AQ lost to 66 and i was out. the same guy went all in with QJ and 89 earlier, so i called him. These people just toss money around like its nothing. They raise big preflop, so everyone is jsut throwing thier chips around and im sitting there with my 250 stack, thinking shit, this thing is getting small. The guy next too me had 1600 chips, 30 mins in.

The rebuy seems so small though, you rebuy youru 250 and it is like nothing, and I don't think I can do anythign with that stack.

btw swami, i have been destroying party $50 tourneys. 14 buy ins, 3 1st, 4 2nds, 4 3rds, everytime I've lost and wnet out, I was in with the best of it besides once. Just got screwed hard in my last one to get 2nd, same guy rivered me twice.

Matt24 · May 6, 2004

you should see these guys though, they are bad, before the tourney, they were like yeah ive been playing yahoo. Me and a friend just looked at each other and smirked.

theswami · May 6, 2004

Matt-

Good to hear about your success at Party. I've done ok at the one table tourneys but there is a fair amount of short term luck that is rewarded in them. I would rather play the ring games and larger tourneys once in a while.

I plan to be play more since the rest of my life is calming a bit. I'll be playing a few hours this weekend with the exception of Saturday when I plan to try out my new golf clubs. I look for ya when I log in.

FWIW, IMHO I don't love that call with AQ preflop. He could have anything and you are reducing your edge by flat calling there. He could have had a range of hands from 89 to AA and you're HOPING that your AQ is a favorite. You have to guess that it is probably a coin flip in most situations. There would have been better situations for you to get your money into the pot with this guy if he is as wild as you say. Unless you have a big pair I would guess that you don't want to call away your money against a guy like him. See the flop cheaply with that hand, be the raiser, or fold. You only played 30 minutes with him so you barely had a read and more importantly, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. Your stack was not great but far from being so low that it called for an all-in call whenever you got a big ace. Enough of my amateurish critique of your play...lol

BTW, the tourney structure is HORRIBLE with 250 in chips and 5/10 blinds to start. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not rebuying once you got below the floor.

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