My name is Penguinfan........

[Reel Deal]

^ Yeah, what Chip said... go find a good poker book and read it for a couple days and stay off-line.

[Talking Poker]

I'll third the advice above. Small Stakes Hold'Em is where you should start. Read it, process it, ask some questions here if you have any (especially if something seems completely wrong to you when you read it), and post some specific hand histories.... not just ones where you lost, but ones that maybe you won but think you misplayed.

Do you use Poker Tracker? If you post your stats, there may be some obvious things we can point out for you (ie, you are WAY too tight, or WAY too passive or whatever).

And please tell me if you are playing limit or NL, because they are completely different games...

[Penguinfan]

Limit cash games and NL tournaments like everyone else.

I see the same people time after time, including yourself, going deep in these games so there has to be at least as much skill involved as luck, right? It has become clear to me that it is much more than just bad luck, it has to be an overall strategy that keeps me from winning or at least cashing.

Getting your set of A's ruined on the river by a flush is, yes, bad luck and I understand it will happen from time to time and you can't do a damn thing about it.

What I do see is me being in the same spot, time after time in a tournament. That being with an average stack after the first break with the blinds now becoming a concern. Never am I in or near the chip lead or near the bottom of the pile, unless I have busted out because of an extremely bad beat.

I guess I am never near the top becasue I don't gamble with the bingo players early on, maybe that needs to change.

As far as cash games go I know I don't play at the limits where it is actually poker, in all honesty the cards may as well be dealt face up at the lower limits and we all know that.

Like I said, I need a whole new strategy and theory about the game.

[Talking Poker]

Without seeing PT stats or specific hand histories, I won't be able to give you specific advice, but I can give you a few things to think about...

In tourneys, what is your goal? Are you playing to win, or trying to sneak into the money? The latter is a losing strategy, IMO. If you are the first person out or if you finish on the bubble, you get paid the same - and even if you DO make it into the money, if you regularly sneak in, you'll be a losing MTT player in the long run. These tourneys are HEAVILY weighted towards the top 3 spots, so that should be your goal (IMO) - at least making the final table (depending on the size of these things).

I am NOT suggesting playing recklessly or garbage hands like Q4, but you may want to play more hands that can take down big pots early - ie, calling raises with suited connectors and that sort of thing. In limit cash games, this would be a terrible move, but in a NL tourney, you can end up taking down a HUGE pot when you flop a nut straight against AA. Sometimes playing like this will send you to the rail early, but from what you are saying, that means you're going to get paid exactly what you've been getting paid anyway - $0. So why not put yourself in a position to maybe get an early chip lead and then really be able to use your big stack to push people around as the money approaches and set yourself up to go deep?

Again, this isn't specific advice... just some stuff to think about.

I change gears a LOT when I play, but for these HUGE MTTs, I found I've had the most success by playing extra tight early on. I know this seems to contradict what I just said, and I guess it does, but one thing I want to suggest is that I try to avoid the "trouble hands." Yes, you can flop broadway with KJ, but more often than not, you're going to win a small pot or lose a big one with hands like that. So chuck em. I'd call a raise with 67s a LOT faster than I would with KJ...

When I do have a hand (after the flop, especially), I hammer it and try to win as much as possible. I try to bet the maximum amount I can that my opponent will call - this is a "feel" thing and very much depends on your opponent(s).

Once I double up and get myself a healthy stack, I crank up the aggression. As the table changes or players start to adapt to my game, I back off. I'll fold almost everything for a couple of orbits and then crank it up again. This is very hard to explain, as it's a lot more about feel and reacting to how your opponents are playing than anything else.

Especially as the tourney goes on, it's crucial to know who the good and bad players at your table are. Don't try to bluff the bad ones, and don't be afraid to make a big move on the good ones (like a check raise when a big scare card hits the board) - they are capable of making big laydowns if you play a hand like you have a monster, regardless of the two cards sitting in front of you.

"Starting requirements" are good to know, but they will only get you so far. Watch any of the top players and you'll realize they often throw these out the window. And post flop play is much more important than preflop play, so when you start with a good looking hand and get a bad looking flop, you need to know how to deal with this.

Again.... that's all just some general NL MTT stuff for you to think about. MTTs are very complicated, which is part of why I love them so much.

As for your limit cash games, those are cake. Where NL MTT play is about feel, limit cash games are about math. Once you tweak your game and learn to beat them regularly, they become very mechanical. Position and aggression are huge. I would rank your starting cards as the NEXT most important thing...

Oh, and a positive mental attitude is key too. You're going to have losing nights. The sooner you can accept that and not let them get to you, the better. I'm still trying to get myself to the point of being 100% accepting of losing big hands to ridiculous river suckouts, and I've come a long way, but I'm still not there yet..... Remember, when you are a 90% favorite with one card to come, you're still going to lose 1 in 10 hands. So when you do, accept it. "Ahhh, there it is."

I realize this is long, unedited, and all over the place, but I'm just trying to type some stuff up for you off the top of my head. Hopefully you (and maybe even others) will get something useful out of it.

[Penguinfan]

Thanks TP, it's actually very useful. It's just taken a while to accept that you can't simply be unlucky every time you play, it has to be an issue of skill and strategy eventually.

yes I realize that sometime you WILL in fact make the right play and get unlucky, but it can't be as often as I percieve it has been. Nobody is that unlucky, right?


As I was typing this I was playing a cash limit game and just cracked a guys AA when he limped to me in the BB with Q9 and I flopped two pair that filled up on the river. Expect him to start the nest thread I guess.

[ChipFish]

Without really reading TP's 9 volume reply above, and just taking the excerpt about your AA being cracked on the river, ask yourself this...

"Am I being aggressive enough?"
"Am I pricing them out of their draws?"

My goal is to never see a showdown in a tourney. (never happens, but you get the idea)
And When I do, I want to have something strong...

Also, keep pots small when you can until you know where you are.

[Reel Deal]

For NL MTTs you really should get your hands on Harrington on Hold Em... it helped me get to those back-to-back final tables on PR and nearly get to the final table last night on Stars.

[Reel Deal]

I don't know if this will help you any and I'm not professing to be an expert, but you might find this interesting... these are some of my stats last night from the Stars 20 table $20+2 where I finished 12th (at one point when we were down to 2 tables I was 7th in chips):

------------------------------------------
You finished in 12th place (eliminated at hand #2994510596).

186 hands played and saw flop:
- 3 times out of 25 while in small blind (12%)
- 7 times out of 23 while in big blind (30%)
- 16 times out of 138 in other positions (11%)
- a total of 26 times out of 186 (13%)

Pots won at showdown - 7 out of 11 (63%)
Pots won without showdown - 20
-------------------------------------------

What I found interesting is that I played extremely tight (saw only 13% of all flops), but you'll see I won 20 pots w/o a showdown and 7 of 11 showdowns. So, as you can see I didn't get involved in many pots, but when I did I aggressively went after them and/or made sure I had a hand that would hold up at showdown.