Sitting Out For A Few Hands During Tournaments

Do you like to take a break and sit out for a while during tournaments.
I've always been someone who tries to be there for every hand played and never miss anything.
I always think you may miss some easy chance to accumulate a lot of chips if you go and sit out for a while.
Surely it must be the ideal to play every hand.
I guess sometimes you need a break if you're sitting there for hours though and you're deep stacked enough that you can afford to give up some blinds and antes.
I am just starting to think I should take a break for 10 or 15 mins sometimes as I start to get very tired or just bored and make bad decisions after I have been playing too long.

I'm there pretty much every hand unless I'm getting something to drink.

Don't sit out.

Get mentally/physically prepared to play your best for the duration.

Why do you think we get bored? Why do we play hand #15 like our life depends on every detail but play hand #99 like we could care less?

^^This.

You're essentially admitting your lack of self-discipline relevant to poker by doing so. If your goals in playing the game are to better your skills and earning potential, then you should learn to be in control of yourself and avoid mistakes. A lot of pros show up late to tournaments, but it usually because they are taking care of unfortunates at lucrative high stakes side games.

[quote=DamianDelPiero;1309499A lot of pros show up late to tournaments, but it usually because they are taking care of unfortunates at lucrative high stakes side games.[/quote]

I find it very strange to see people like Phil Hellmuth turn up late for the first play at the WSOP.
By doing so they might be throwing away a chance to double up early against some weak player.

I do not sit out often during a tournament because I am afraid I will miss my one really good hand that I will get that hour. That said, there are times when I have been called away for some other thing going on in my world that I have to sit out, but it is usually not a planned thing. I usually even will carry my wireless laptop to the kitchen if I want to make something to eat or think I will be away for more than 15 seconds.

I sit out sometimes cause I feel playing to many hands is not good for u.

I agree. I never want to miss a hand, could miss aces !

Even when I need a wee I wait till the break

For freerolls, sometimes the sheer time commitment makes showing up late worth while . . . try to catch a quick double and go, or be out and don't worry about it. However, if ponying up $, stay and play!

if i'm multi-tabling...i'm in it every hand. i find when i'm single tabling...even in a sng, i might get up and sit out a few hands here and there...i have come back, seen my AA auto-fold before i could sit back in...see someone with KK raise, and be called by the 78s on the blind and get flushed out...and was thankful, even though i'm sure with AA vs KK preflop, we could have re-raised 78s out of there...but there have been a few other times i came back to see AA, KK, QQ fold away at the last second. i mean, you really do pay for it. you seem to get about 1-3 monsters per hour...and there goes one of them. i do have a problem, like right now, but i'm not playing so hang on a sec....yeah, ok, where i gotta peeeeeee sooooo baaaaaad aaaaah!!!! and you're playing like 5 sng's and the blinds are like 100/200 in all of them and you're not even getting a second before action is required on one table or another....has anyone peed in a bottle at this point? i'm not afraid to admit i have...joke all you want.

I personally would never sit out in a tourney...if you want, kinda chill, and play super tight and only play monsters..because if you were to sit out, and miss your bb which flopped the nuts, youd miss out on a lot of chips..Id never recommend it, I always go the toilet and get my drink when im on brea or not in hand...

i think sitting out the first ten minutes of tourney doesnt hurt espicially with all lot of players trying to double up early with mediocre hands, also sitting out later after taking a bad beat is wise. as they say in golf its not how you drive its how you arrive

I have to smoke outside and countless times ive come back from a quick cig to see pockets pictures folded.

Before the cardschat freeroll challenge started,I would sitout at fulltilt alot.Once I missed a full 40 minutes of the start of a fulltilt freeroll and went on to win the game.I dont remember if it was a cardschat game or not.The blinds move up so slow at fulltilt,you do not need to play much at the first half of tournys there.Give this a try.
I definitely go farther the less hands I play.

only time i ever sit out is when i need a toilet or i have a couple of bad beats and need to cool of to get my head back straight otherwise i will tilt and play stupid but other than that i never sit out

YO WOODY!!!!! havent seen you in here in a while.
how you doin at the tables bro?
im on vacation so i wont be playing for another 4-5 days until i get back.
Have yo had any cashes m8?

sorry to be off topic guy, ill make a contribtion....I NEVER SIT OUT!!!!!
no matter what!!i believe its wating opprtunities.

Why sign up to play if you're just going to get bored? To me this seems illogical. If you are on tilt or aren't playing to the best of your abilities because you're hungry, then sit out, calm down, fix some food, etc; Other than those reasons, I don't understand why anyone would intentionally sit out. If you get bored, play more tables to occupy your mind.

If that is you in the picture you are too young to smoke.

I never get boared, but get frustrated when I go card dead.always seems to happen just after you make it to the money. I sometimes sit out, but only when it is supper time and the wife gets mad if I do not eat with the family. She would prefer I wait to start a tournament until after supper.

The only time this can be the correct play is in sattelite tourneys that pay the same amount for all places. I have played a few and have good stats at them, and when i get near bubble with good amount of chips i will usually sit out quite liberally so i dont get aces cracked against a big stack,but even then i try not to miss more than a few hands completely, in case a shortstack goes allin and i can knock them out.

i dont sit out if possible. I know that i would get pkt AA two times in a row when i am gone.

I DRINK WATER , WALK A LITTLE , eat some thing some times i listen some music to relax .... relax to play more time

If you are getting bored, you should try games that finish up a lot quicker. You can enter a 1 table SnG or even a 1 table Turbo SnG. The blinds go up a lot faster, so the games are a lot shorter. If you get bored playing a 1 table Turbo SnG, you really need to work on your focus and patience. Or, as has been suggested, try more tables. That will keep you busy and you won't have time to get bored.

Sure, you could miss aces. You could also miss three rag hands in a row, or miss the hand where you run your queens into aces and get busted out.

So while I enter a tournament with the intention of being there for every hand, if I've gotta get up for a few minutes and miss some it's really not the end of the world. I don't play that many MTTs though and it's much less of an issue in the STTs and cash games that I do play.

I don't like to miss hands either but sometimes it's just necessary (nature calls or whatever).

Wasn't there recently a guy who won one of the Sunday majors despite falling asleep for several hours during the tournament?

I don't think it makes that much difference one way or another. I'm a bit of a fatalist, so I assume that while I may miss AA or KK from time to time, I also miss out on an equivalent number of hands where I would go broke. Please note I'm not saying the two are mutually exclusive

We don't directly profit from being dealt Aces or Kings. We profit from the mistakes of our opponents.

You may lose chips while you are playing or sitting out but you can't accumulate chips unless you are playing.

The devil's advocate in me says you can't make your own mistakes (other than autofolding big hands, obv) while you're sitting out either and your opponents will only be acquiring your chips at the minimum rate, so again it pretty much evens out and I maintain that missing a few hands really isn't that big of a deal.

And if it was a big deal, pros would never ever show up late to a live tournament.

For a while, I thought that is easier to wait a nice hand then to play at almost every hand, but i was wrong. If u wait a good hand, the chances are smaller to win. U cand have part pf a bad bit and u will loose more than playing hand by hand or almost.

How many hands do you think we should "sit out" to give us the best chance to win the tournament?

We can't determine whether we have a positive or negative expectation for the next 50 hands we are going to play. But, we can determine our expectation for the next 50 hands we sit out. It's negative.

I don't think missing a few hands is that big of a deal either but... OP was rationalizing sitting out as a tactic to avoid bad decisions made from tiredness or boredom. A better tactic would be getting mentally/physically prepared to play our A-game for the duration.

I agree to sitting out in the beginning because of the rag hands that catch, but only in large freerolls...brick and mortar , I never let a hand pass by!

DONT SIT OUT, i know its tempting sometimes but i learned today when i was dominating the table and decided to take a break, i came back and i was one of the small stacks at the table because the blinds went up every five min, luckily i was playing really well and managed to gain my stack back