first live tournament. . .

hey everyone

i have played a good amount of online tournaments at low stakes, and have played many live games with friends and others, as well as a few casino tables. but this weekend i am playing in my first live tournament, and was wondering if some of you more experienced players might have some advice for me.

the main event is a $500 buy in, but i don't have that kind of cash. so i am going to play a $25 satellite to win a seat for the big tourney. any words of wisdom for someone doing this for the first time? much appreciated!

Play tight the first half hour or more. Pay attention to the other players and observe their playing styles. Then, adjust accordingly.

Just be patient and slowly build your stack while the blinds are low. This patience possible will set you up for blind steals a little easier when the blinds go up due to your tight play. Dont risk your whole stack unless you have the nuts or the second nuts (in certain occassions). Only risk your stack later in the tourny when the pressure of the blinds makes it the right move. Hope you do well Alurone. GL

read a poker book, that's the most important.

thanks for the replies everyone - keep 'em coming.



btw - do you guys think its generally worth playing the satellite for a chance to win a seat to the tourney? i guess it depends on how many players there are, but the prize pool for the tourney is $80,000 so i figure its worth a shot. . .

play tight for the first hour or so but if you have a good hand go with it. if you get high stacked try stealin pots from people with less chips.

just play tight early; that will bring in some nice steady chips and will enable you to steal in the middle/late parts of the tourney when you start loosening up and widen your hand selection.
Be observant and make mental notes on players - when you notice which are the real solid players, try to keep out of his way unless you have a monster hand
And another thing is try to avoid the coinflip hands for all-ins - don't be afraid to fold second best hands like queens or jacks preflop if you're facing a big raise or a reraise from a tight player....
i dunno can't think of anything else - Good Luck!!

Of course! If you are a good enough player that you will be able to win a seat and place in the money...think of the return you are getting on your investment! In this case, $25. Definitely worth a shot.

The fellas gave you some good advice, so all that's left for me to say is, Good Luck!

thanks everyone. you are all great, and this site has been really good for me so far. i'll check in and let you guys know how it goes on saturday.

so here's how it went for me yesterday:

i go and register for the satellite to win a seat in the main tournament. its $25 to enter for a chance to win a seat at the $80,000 tourney. i don't hava a lot to spend, so i figure this is a good chance for me to get some experience and possibly get into some money if i play right. well now i'm finding out that the satellite i'm entering supports as many re-buys as you want before the break, and an add-on period after that. . .

i figure i only planned on spending the initial $25, so i'm going to stick to it and see how it goes. so i get to my seat where my chips are waiting for me - only $500 worth. now as everyone is sitting down, its re-buy city already. $25 more gets you $1000 in chips, and you can double re-buy any time for $2000 in chips. every single person that i saw doubled right away - so immediately i'm the short stack with $500 compared with everyone's $2500. i'm feeling a little meek at this point, but i'm sticking to my original plan even if it means that i get to only see one flop.

so everyone is playing very loose, re-buying left and right while i sit behind a measley $500 in chips. so i play very tight and wait for something great like AK or AA or KK. this works for me, and i win a few hands and get my chips up. after a few, i'm over $6000 from $500, feeling pretty good. by this time, there were many players at my table who had already re-bought for more than $300 actual dollars. why not just buy into the $500 tourney that you're trying to win a seat for?

its too late to make a long story short, but i saw many people eliminated before me - some who had spend hundreds of dollars on re-buys, and i had still only spent my original $25. there were close to 20 tables to begin with, and i made it down to the last 4 before i finally went out. its 2 handed between me and another player with an almost equal chip stack to mine. he goes all-in. i have AK of hearts and i call. he turns over 9c9s. flop comes down - 3s8s5s and now he needs one more spade for a flush. turn comes, i get my ace (diamonds)! feeling good, now comes the river - another ace! but of course it was the ace of spades and the other guy makes his flush. . .

it hurt to go out, but i feel i made the right play by calling his all-in. in addition, i felt great about the fact that all of these guys spent way more money than me, and most of them were eliminated before me. i played well overall, so i felt good about it. good experience for me, as i have never played in any sort of live tournament action.

ok, sorry for the essay post - i hope its not too long for some of you to read!

Allur,

No need to be sorry for the long one. A tourney like that needs more than just "I bought for $25. come to find out it was a rebuy and I went out in 20th or so place"

Sounds like you did quite well for your first Live tournament especially all the money flying around with all those rebuys.

Congrats on outlasting the dopes that spent way too much money on the rebuys. Better luck next time for a higher finish or a win!

What a rip-off!! 500 starting chips for a tournament? Sounds like a total ploy to try and force you to re-buy. But props to you for sticking to your guns. And the fact that you really didn't need a re-buy speaks volumes of your play.

Makes you wonder doesn't it? Kind of defeats the whole purpose of playing the satellite to begin with. Now, I'm not a mathmetician like F Paullson, but something tells me they are getting -EV.

Just goes to show...bad beats don't only happen online!

Good showing, AlurOne! You should feel good about your performance. I have a feeling next time you just may be in the money...

thats great, alurone!
too bad you didn't get farther, but sounds like you had a good experience, and that's one of the best things you can get out of a tourney (aside from $$$ of course )
that rebuy system sounds like a gyp to me

no question, the re-buy system was a definite gyp. it was set up so that you almost had to re-buy just so that you could compete. they made a lot of money from it though, because like i said EVERYBODY was all over multiple re-buys.

well thanks for the kind words, and i'm glad i could bounce my experience off of you guys and gals. i felt really good about my play, and next time hopefully i'll be in some money and have some good news for you all!

Well Done. Here is my take on re-buy tourneys- I hate them. It favors the casino not the player. In general, the bigger discrepancie there is between the starting chip count and the blind structure, the more skill is involved. You can afford to play a patient game. Marcel Luske will not play a tourney that doesn't give you 150X the big blind which only happens in the bigger tournamnets. The point being that in fast blind structures, it becomes a coin flip. If you don't get good cards, you have to make moves and risk getting caught. Another observation-- AK is a dangerous hand to call all ins with because agains pairs it's a virtual coin flip and you are dominated against AA and KK. I will call an all in if my chip counts warrants it. It's a gamble what can I say.

yeah i agree that rebuys are a little sketchy - people seem to play very loosely if they have money and can just keep rebuying chips. broke people like me have to just sit tight and wait on the good hands i guess. . .

and i hear ya about the all-in being a coin flip. in this case it seemed like the thing to do because we were both short stacked and had a similar chip count. plus, this guy was tilting as it was from having his stack knocked down - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you just get rained out i guess!

i went to AC, played at the taj mahal started with 5k in chips 65 people in it! i had a strategy i was going to play tigh and patient, wait for rally good hands and play them agressive and try n steal a few pots as SB or BB! i was nervous as hell for about 30-45 minutes! i got AA early on...won a big pot took out my first person live...... was up to 9k! i won blinds with 88! so here we are 2 hours in ive played 4 hands! i have about 7k left! blinds 300/600 ante 100! i look at my cards AA...wooohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i raise up to 3k (i wanted 1 caller or take the pot here) i have 1 person thinbking about it, 2 others r ready to fold.......i thought i heard her says she raises..... i get excited andf announce all in..... she was just asking how much i raised......oops! she thinks some more and calls, other 2 fold! i fighuring she has KK or QQ! flop 2h 10h 8d.......i got almost half my chips in 2 hearts on baord... no k or Q.....all in! she calls instantly...................1010...turn n river no help! i go out at 30/65 i had fun and hell i had AA twice in my 1st tourney! that makes up for no good hands besides the 2 AA and 1 88....the next best hand i had was A8s

Excellent work AlurOne,

I like guys that don't spend alot on re-buy and do really well, i tend to do that alot.

At my local poker place, the re-tourney is £10 for 2000 chips, i like to play TAG and hardly ever rebuy - i do however plump for an add-on at the first break which is £10 for 2000. By that time ive usually amassed around 10,000+ but i'm not willing to spend more than £20 in the tourney.

BF

In the online qualifiers with rebuys, the rebuy money goes for more seats. They might only guaruntee 3 seats, but end up paying out 5 with all the rebuy money. Didn't they do this in the casino? If not, it sounds like a ripoff.