Need some advice/tips for this weeks tourny

Hi everyone, each Friday a group of people meet up at a local bar to play a no limit holdem tourny. Its usually between 30-50 players. The first week I played there I ended up winning the tourny. The second week I was out in like 14th place. I go again this Friday and am looking for some advice.

The tourny is hard because its a small group of people and the blinds are pretty high. Everyone starts with 2000 in chips, and the lowest chip being worth 25. The starting blinds are small blind 25 and big blind 50. They go up every 10 min and before you know it blinds are killing you and taking a good chunk of your chip stack. So if you dont win a few hands or dont get the right cards you could be out very early in this tourny.

Anyone have any advice or tips on how I should go about playing in this weeks tourny? Should I be changing my playing style each week due to the fact its a small tourny? Should I bluff down pots more often or just play premiun cards? Even just playing premium cards if you dont hit some cards on the turn, youll probally get bet out.

Any advice or tips will be greatly appreciated for this kind of tourny as I would love to win it again.

Welcome to FTR. You should probably post this in the MTT forum.

That's not the sort of blind structure that rewards good post-flop play. After the first few levels, you shouldn't be limping many hands, if any. If your stack is dwindling you may have to go into push/fold mode very early. Do a search and read about M and inflection points. If you are so inclined, pick up a copy of Harrington on Hold'em Volume II.

ok thanks for the help... your picture scared the HECK out of me when I opened this page... LOL

You should see her doing yoga :wink:

Ummmm. no thanx!

I play in torneys like this just about once a week at the royal lounge in pittsburgh. $ 5.oo buyin. I bet when you show up its the same people every week. If you watch the game its usually goes something like this. In the early blinds it seems every one plays every hand, lots of pots with at least 6 or seven people limping. Hell sometimes I have seen the whole table try to limp into pots. 90% of the people playing are complete donks they will call you whith just about anything ( which is a good thing). Which is why early on I tend to be patient and try to pick my spots. Its so nice to look down with a good hand with 5 or 6 limpers in the pot. So early I try very hard to be patient and rarely try to bluff. Because you just cant bluff these people of hands, it just hardly ever seems to work. So early play only premium hands in any position and medium hands in late and junk never. Now if you wait until the blinds are say $100/$200 you will watch the table tighten up a great deal. They will still try to limp If you let them. This is where I tend to open up a bit or alot depending on my stack. Remember they are playing tight so I tend to play looser. Now is when you can try to bluff because it will usually turn into A checkfest If none of them hit the flop. If it checks around to me I might take a stab at the pot with a nice raise. Now when you get to the final table and won Man I can almost gurantee it became A fold fest. with alot of all ins. Now depending on the poeple at the table If I can sit through the blinds I try to be patient. When they limp (and they will) I will take alot of pots preflop with raises when im in lp. Blinds at final table are usually 1k/2k. Its worth trying to steal blinds if you can do it because it gets you through the blinds at least one more time. I hope this made at least some sense because I think I rambeled on there a bit ..Sorry

I've played my share of shallow stack tournaments. You are right- success depends on the cards, among other things, just like any other tournament.

It's already been mentioned, but it's worth repeating: you are playing a preflop game. With 40BB to start (and TEN minute level changes) you do not want to play any drawing or "speculative" hands. No suited connectors. No suited a-rags at a full table. After the first round or so, avoid low pocket pairs completely.

What hands do you want to play? Paint. Broadway cards. Big drawing hands like JTs / QJs from good positions. And of course your premium pairs. Since no hand is making it past the flop, you don't want drawing hands. You want to make a big pair on the flop and take it down. When blinds are big the pots are going to be pretty sizeable by the flop and you're going to want to play fast usually.

So... in short:
1. Play tight.
2. Play a solid preflop game, stick to your "book" hands: paint and med/high pairs.
3. Be positionally aware. Open up in later positions.
4. Be aggressive. Pots are worth taking down even before a flop. Don't open-limp or minraise; give opponents a chance to fold. You will prob. be in shove mode by the 3rd level. Don't bleed by limping a mediocre hand that looks good.
5. Don't attempt to bluff an idiot (8/9 of your opponents probably fall under this category). Bet everything for value; no slowplaying requred. Here's a tip for betting for value: think of how much your opponent would surely call, then bet more.

Because the blinds increase so fast compared to your stack. I believe you need to play even tighter, you can't afford to lose any chips where you don't need to. Its best to fold all hands and only play pots where you can enter with a raise. Try to play only premium holdings.

Believe me, I tried that strategy where I limped with all possible drawing hands (any suited, any 2 gap connectors, any low pairs), not being able to hit any flops strongly and losing a large portion of my stack. I was card dead seeing only KJo, A7s, and 23s as my only premium hands.

Towards the middle and end of the tournament monitor your M value tightly. M value = Your stack in relation to the (Small blind+big blind total) If your stack becomes lower than or equal to 5 times the stakes. Your only option is to Move ALL IN.

When you decide to Move In. It should depend more on the situation than the cards. If you have good cards, any pocket pair or big cards such as any Ace, any two face cards - GREAT. Otherwise, you have to hope for late position such as the Button or Small Blind, where your less likely to be called. Push it in there with what ever garbage you have. Even if your called by one other player, as long as they do not have a pair (or big pair). You still have at least 30 to 35% to double up.