MTT difficulties

I have played some MTT with poor results only placing in the money around 5 to 10 percent of the time. Luck and a breif look a clarity is what I contribute the winnings to. Any help and or books, articles. I hate rebuys becaues I dont play them properly, so I avoid them if possiable. Though most of my winnings come from them without rebuying or adding on. Please help!!!

The Harrington on Hold 'em series is solid gold reading for MTT players.

Remember too that with MTTs you won't finish in the money as often, but you should be cashing for more when you do.

What do you find is your biggest problem with the tourneys you play?

Like oz said, the HoH series will definitely help you. They're without a doubt the most helpful books I've ever read and I don't think any tournament player should be without them.

For a quick start, read the strategy articles on this site if you haven't done that already.

The best book on tounaments is Harrington's 3-volume set. First 2 volumes go into a lot of detail how to play tournaments. The 3rd volume is a quiz.

Another good book is Skalnsky's book on tournaments.

Here are a few pointers on how to play MTTs.

When blinds are small, play tight. Basically AQ or better(perhaps AT,AJ from late position). Limp or call a small raise with any pair from any position and if you don't hit a set, fold on the flop. From middle and late position, you can play SC 45 or higher. Don't overbet as it increases pots too much and foces you to risk large percentage of your chips(or all of them).

When blinds get bigger play a little more aggressive and add more high cards, like QK. SCs are now not as good as your stack is usually smaller. Same applies to small pairs. Also, if you haven't been moved to another table in a while, use your tight image to steal some blinds or bluff at a pot in position.

The above should get you to the late stages of the tourney quite often. In that stage, you will often have a small stack(even if it is an average stack). SCs are almost worthless since you don't have the implied odds to draw. Small pairs are also trouble. Play mostly big cards. Steal more blinds when you get a chance. Best situation for blind stealing is you are first in the pot, the blinds are small or medium stacks and tight. When you have less than 10BB, you should go all-in pre-flop with any pair or very high cards. However, if there are limpers or raisers in front of you, very small pairs may not be good, and you are more likely to get called.

For final table play, play some SNGs to get some sense. The SNGs, however, start with big stacks and you will rarely have such stack at the final table.

Finally, read posts on this forum and twoplustwo.com There is a lot of very good and detailed information.

Good luck.

"Powerful Profits From Tournament Poker" by Victor H. Royer

Great read and helped me increase my profits.

Thanks guys!! Chuck my piggest problem is as they say is shifting gears and down shifting in paticular.

If you didn't play at Bodog I'd offer to audit a HH of a tourney you played, but their HHs are just impossible to sift through.

Read HoH; it will definitely help.

Down shifting won't be so hard if you combine it with positional play. You have to be in a higher gear to even worry about downshifting, so once the blinds, button, and CutOff pass by, consider you can only play monsters. That will be UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2 MP, MP+1 and often the CO. As always it will depend, but for the most part early position is not a good place to be playing marginal hands.

Don't feel you have to play any cards regardless of position. You should be seeing long periods, even 10 orbits (really bad day anyway) where you won't be getting cards that interest you. You do NOT have to play 2 hands an orbit, or 3 or 4. It's real nice on those occasions when you are able to play that often profitably, but don't expect it to happen often.

Respect the rushes, else practice the hushes.