MTTs - How often. .

Should I be looking to cash?

I have to say so far i've been pretty unsuccessful in MTTs, barring three final tables, 2 of those were NLHE freerolls where I picked up $40 and $25 respectively, and the other was a limit tourney where I picked up $100 odd. It's still +ROI, but only just, and the limit FT seems like a world ago.

A lot of time I bubble, or go out with about 15-20% of the field remaining on a 10% bubble. It's fairly demoralising playing for 2/3 hours only to miss out on the money and have it all be a waste of time, financially speaking.

I just want to know really how often the successful MTT players of you cash and if I should be worried that I can go sometimes up to 10/15 MTTs
at a time without cashing. What's a good entry/place ratio? Or is it all dependant on the size of each cash?

Also, any tips for MTT play? My normal strategy is getting into a lot of pots on the cheap if I can with good drawing hands, hoping to hit and if I do, plaing it strong. Monsters preflop I play aggressively. The only thing i've noticed though, and I wouldn't mind some specific advice on this actually, is that mid pocket pairs seem to cost me the most in MTTs. When is it alriht to call a preflop raise with a mid PP. And, is it worth raising into an unraised pot with a mid PP in middle position? Would you always call a mid PP in early position and hope the pot isn't raised? If it does get raised, do you call the raise for set value? How many callers would be needed etc and how small would the raise need to be? I'm sure this is my leak but I just can't get my head around plugging it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

FTR, I usually play $1/2/3/5 buyins, either freezeout or rebuy. Normal fields can range from 200 up to 800 at peak times.


Thanks all.

Point to note, MTTs are definitely my favourite to play. I like the idea of small investment, great reward, and I enjoy seeing my stack getting bigger and the field getting smaller(when it happens of course). So, to make it consistently profitable would be great!

i will explain this to ya later when i wake up...now good night zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I dunno if this is the same for all sites, but the level always goes up either every 10 or every 12 minutes, starting stack normally 1k. Occasionally 1500, but seldom. So by the time you're 1 hour in the blinds are up to 100/200 at least depending on blind stucture.

But I must play sooooooooooooon



G'night

According to official online poker rankings, nearly all the top MTT players online cash between 15 and 20% of the time, 20% being extremely rare. But what's really more important is getting deep as often as possible the times you do cash. One first place in a tournament of about 1000 entrants can earn you more winnings than placing just inside the money over 100 different times (and that's not even taking out the buy-ins you're paying to enter a hundred tournaments compared to just one). It's just the nature of tournament poker, and for that reason, you have to play a whoooooole lot of tournaments to get even a decent idea of how profitable you are. Even then, there will always be variance

Woohoo a chance to boast about my stats under the guise of helping somone

I've got 72 cashes in 355 tournies on Party Poker for a 20% in the money. ROI% fluctuates with the big wins but is 88% at the moment. It's common for me to go 10 games without a cash and I've had plenty of worse runs than that, at the moment I've gone 17 without a cash on Party and this isn't much of a worry as I've been getting to the last 20% and just failing to convert.

In fact you shouldn't be worrying about your ITM% too much because it's the final tables that pay and the top three that really matter. Of the 355 I've had 26 final tables and more importantly 10 top threes. These are the figures that really count as the top threes account for more return than the rest of the in the monies put together. This is not to say you should throw your chips away in the search for the big finishes (in fact MTTs are about patience combined with well timed super aggression) but try not to get hung up about the bubble.

What you do want to see is a good rate of getting through the first hour (when half the field will disappear), you should be doubling up more often than not and surviving this period at least 70% of the time.


As for medium pairs, if you can limp then great but after the first hour when the blinds are small I pretty much ditch anything up to TT to any preflop raise and quite often JJ (there are of course exceptions). You want to be the aggressor in a pot and set-mining is going to result in gambling your stack away more often than getting you a big score. If you hit a low flop you can find yourself getting stacked against QQ+ unless you are really disciplined.

If you are first to raise then 88-JJ become very powerful as you represent all sorts of fun things with them.

Really you need to be both tighter than everyone and looser than everyone but in the right circumstances this means making some killer folds (laying down QQ or TPTK or two pair) when your opponent clearly has you beat but also some "loose" calls and very very very occassionally the big bluff.

Excellent, that's the sort of advice i'm after. Much appreciated. I just started a $1 MTT on Party Poker and am up to $5500 after about a half dozen hands. I'll try and stick to what you've told me and see how I go. The PP advice is especially interesting, thanks.

No problem.

The trick is to avoid the hands where you are on the back foot from the beginning. Sometimes this can be due to position but more often it's due to getting holecards which you feel are too good to fold but could easily be behind or even dominated by your opponents cards.

This can result in a reluctant call preflop, a continuation bet on the flop or even in the case of AQ on an Axx or Qxx flop the loss of a significant chunk of chips to AK or KK, AA. Not to say you shouldn't play AQ, JJ, TT etc sometimes when there's a raise ahead but if you start the hand thinking "I could be behind here" then if you are committing chips to the pot make sure you are doing so for good reason (a read or you think you have fold equity) rather than because the cards look pretty

Just to reinforce if you are first to raise in a pot you can get very creative with all sorts of hands, you don't want to be weak-tight. Just choose the battlefield that suits you not your opponent.

Up to 10k! Raised an unraised pot on the button with 78 diamonds, hit a flush, guy hit two pair, the rest is history.

Reinforcement noted and understood. Thanks again. .

What do you think of hands like AJ in middle position in an unraised pot? Raise or call or fold?

utg and in ep I often limp AJ as AQ, AK will raise and you can ditch it, while <ATs will limp after you and you can dominate on an Axx flop, there's also lots of two pair and straight value with AJ as when you hit you ofen get paid.

Trouble is it's as vulnerable as hell in a raised pot so it's usually a fold to a raise but in answer to you quesiton I usually raise AJ in mp unraised and hope to pick up the blinds and any limps already in 3xbb +1bb per limper is good. Not looking to get involved in putting in many chips postflop if we get there unless I hit hard or opponent shows weakness.

i'm on the high end with 23% itm & 15% f.deep

Well, 1 hour in, still on 10k. 156 left of 458. Just above average stack. I limped in middle position with my AJ incidently, got raised 3x BB by the SB and folded. He had KK as it transpired.

Going ok, some of these guys are loose as hell, kinda tightening up a bit as a result. Waiting for my spot.

Bah, out in 102nd. Called on the button with KQ off into unraised pot. Flop comes down K82 rainbow, guy before me raises 2200 into a 3000 pot, I don't put him on AA, AK or KK as no preflop raise. So, I re-pop for my entire 8500, he calls and flips over K2. It holds. Meh.

Don't even know if my play here was bad or not.

Thoughts?

Yeh, I also didn't think he has a set here, does a set check/raise into that sort of flop? I know it's what I'd do, hoping to run into someone with a hand just like mine. I actually put him on something like KJ/K10, even 10 10 or JJ.

You didn't raise preflop. He got to play K2. He sucked out. Cause and effect

True but he called in middle position with K2 off after 1 limper. I called KQ off cause I had position(the button). Fair enough I didn't raise, but I had both blinds and 2 limpers to get through. I thought it better to see a cheap flop. With the benefit of hindsight it turned out to be the wrong move, but I want to know if it was a bad play. .

When you have a hand like KQ on the button, chances are it's the best hand preflop. There's only two random hands behind you after all.

Now if you limp, one person (the BB) is going to see three additional cards for free. And often the small blind will call as well. So now you're suddenly up against two opponents, both of which have a chance of hitting the flop.

Yes, the K2 was dominated, but that doesn't matter. Let's say the BB holds J7o, and the flop comes 26J rainbow. You had the best hand preflop with KQ, and the big blind almost certainly would not have called a raise. But now suddenly the big blind has hit top pair and all you have is two overcards.

There's no reason to let anyone see a free flop other than wanting to see a free/cheap flop yourself (e.g. playing 56s against 4 other limpers). With KQ you don't want to allow the blinds to see a free/cheap flop, you want to show them you mean business by raising it up.
Most of the time you'll take the pot right there. But even if you get called you still have position on them postflop.
Strong players may push back by re-raising your button raise, in that case it depends on the situation whether you should play the hand or give it up.

Edit: I just realized that the guy who played K2 was not the small blind. I thought everybody had folded to you on the button. That was a misunderstanding on my part. But most of what I said is true for this situation as well. If you want to play KQ on the button you should raise it up most of the time.

Fair point, but I suppose the reason I didnt raise it up is because there were two limpers before me. I assumed it would be called or even repopped if the guy UTG was slwo playing a massive hand. Didn't really know what to make of the middle position call. After the earlier conv, thought maybe AJ, then post flop either a PP lower than Ks or KJ, maybe even a chop. .

Well, in the money in the $5 rebuy on royal vegas. 18 left.

Well folks, i've been really working on my MTT game, and I think it's improving. .

Here's my graph over mythe last 50 MTTs. .

From the 50 games played, average profit is $14 with an average stake of $5. ROI is 214% with a total profit of $710.

My BR is getting back to the stage again where I can play larger buy ins.

Anyway, anyone else have any tips they'd like to share for MTT play?

Attached Images

Nordica graph Aug 25th - Sep 5th.jpg (12.2 KB, 36 views)

I want to thank the several authors of these posts. There was much information here that will help me in the future. I have been wondering how to approach the button and that question was answered here.