Minimize coin flips for all the chips.

#1 23rd March 2011, 1:26 AM

Is it possible to get really deep in a tournament without a coin flip preflop all-in when I am covered by the other player(s).
If so how often can this happen?

just makes me sick when it's coin flip or if I'm only slight favorite and lose it all.

#2 23rd March 2011, 1:45 AM

The old stand-by, it depends. If you are short stacked and don't have a choice, not much you can do. And, if another player wants to play is AK against your QQ, not much you can do.

Other than that, it is situational. If the stacks are deep, there really is no reason to risk you tourney with AT, cause you "know" villain is shipping it with 8-8.

I just had a situation where I limped from EP with 55 - button has 13BBs left and shoves, it folds to me. I am the table chip leader with 45 BBs, I "know" I am probably ahead of villains range (55/45) but I don't need to risk that many chips on luck. I can use my edge to gather chips more gradually when I am a bigger favourite.

#3 23rd March 2011, 1:48 AM

Try to get into more coinflips for big pots. Embrace variance.

#4 23rd March 2011, 1:49 AM

Sorry but welcome to the game of Poker!!! This is all apart of the game so try to get use to it. Don't be afraid to fold! A flop not seen is a flop not lost.

GL

#5 23rd March 2011, 2:54 AM

I am coming from playing cash games. it's crazy at the late stages of a tournament.
I just finished playing a SnG and in the last hour.
What I notice is that we don't see the flop it's raise...fold fold fold....OR raise reraise all in and we see all 5 community cards.

rarely do I see raise.. call and see the flop only.

#6 23rd March 2011, 3:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlam

I am coming from playing cash games. it's crazy at the late stages of a tournament.
I just finished playing a SnG and in the last hour.
What I notice is that we don't see the flop it's raise...fold fold fold....OR raise reraise all in and we see all 5 community cards.

rarely do I see raise.. call and see the flop only.

you gotta change your plan if you're switching to tourny's.. they're a lot different to cash games.
you'll mostly be no more than 20 - 30 BB's deep at best and so this really restricts your options pre flop.
Say you have 3xBB raise and a caller, you pretty much have to shove 20BB's with a good hand you'd just flat call with in cash games. Calling leaves you playing a big pot with not much fold equity if you miss + try to bluff.
In cash games where you are 100BB deep, you can easily call with enough chips behind to raise/re-raise/fold or whatever you please.

#7 23rd March 2011, 5:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dufferdevon

The old stand-by, it depends. If you are short stacked and don't have a choice, not much you can do. And, if another player wants to play is AK against your QQ, not much you can do.

Other than that, it is situational. If the stacks are deep, there really is no reason to risk you tourney with AT, cause you "know" villain is shipping it with 8-8.

I just had a situation where I limped from EP with 55 - button has 13BBs left and shoves, it folds to me. I am the table chip leader with 45 BBs, I "know" I am probably ahead of villains range (55/45) but I don't need to risk that many chips on luck. I can use my edge to gather chips more gradually when I am a bigger favourite.

Probably shouldn't limp baby pairs in ep with short arks behind.

#8 23rd March 2011, 5:47 AM

You can avoid them, but you´ll have tons of situations when you make a raise when the levels are high with AKs for example, and some dude with bigger stack shoves. There´s nothing to do there (unless you really put him on AA-KK), you have to call. Of course you can make an exception if you are on the bubble and if your strategy is only to make it to the money.

#9 23rd March 2011, 5:55 AM

Coin flips are not really coin flips unless ur calling off. When u ship u have ur actual equity + fold equity. Before calling with AK you need to ask the question would this villain ever shove with AQ or other bluff? If not then you should be folding it more often if stks are 50+bb's deep. Now if you 3 bet AK and get 4 bet shoved on in a tournament you should be calling always if stks are 50bb's or less.

In these situations you may end up coin flipping if called, but more often than not in a tournament the price being laid typically will be fine to justify never realty folding AK pre.

Deciding on weather you need to take or chance a coin flip the strength of the field has a lot to do with it as well. Also the tournament field size and most important the structure of any tournament are ver important things to think about when choosing to put yourself in a coin flip spot.

#10 23rd March 2011, 6:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbbb

you gotta change your plan if you're switching to tourny's.. they're a lot different to cash games.
you'll mostly be no more than 20 - 30 BB's deep at best and so this really restricts your options pre flop.
Say you have 3xBB raise and a caller, you pretty much have to shove 20BB's with a good hand you'd just flat call with in cash games. Calling leaves you playing a big pot with not much fold equity if you miss + try to bluff.
In cash games where you are 100BB deep, you can easily call with enough chips behind to raise/re-raise/fold or whatever you please.

This is a great forum.

Let's say I am 50-100 BB ahead mid way in a tourn
Should I lay low and let the short stacks fight against themselves and the increasing blinds?
Should I play a regular cash post flop game, calling to see the flop. I know I will be HU with a shorter stack who may push shove on the flop or turn?
Should I play the aggressive pre flop game and fold to a reraise?

#11 23rd March 2011, 1:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlam

This is a great forum.

Let's say I am 50-100 BB ahead mid way in a tourn
Should I lay low and let the short stacks fight against themselves and the increasing blinds?
Should I play a regular cash post flop game, calling to see the flop. I know I will be HU with a shorter stack who may push shove on the flop or turn?
Should I play the aggressive pre flop game and fold to a reraise?

A lot of questions and so much to write I couldn't possibly tell you everything.

Firstly, i'm pretty shocking at MTT's so asking me isn't a good place to start :P (More of a STT man myself). But here goes:

A veteran cash game player has advantage over SNG players though because they usually have far superior post flop skills (I assume this is the case with you). MTT's are usually better at ICM considerations, push/fold strategy and the pre-flop game (as a generalisation).
So with this in mind you should be trying to see cheap flops as you have an edge on your opponents in the post-flop game.
So yes, 50-100BB deep you can play a lot like a cash game.
Your M is massive and so you can play as aggressive/passive, tight/loose as you like.

As for the shortstacks shoving.. keep in mind their stack size, as this is the effective stack size and all your decisions should be made depending on this. e.g don't call with a speculative hand if the raise has 15-20BB left.

The best thing you can do is learn push/fold and calling ranges for different blind levels and positions on the table.

#12 23rd March 2011, 2:41 PM

<10BB It's finding the right moment to shove.
10-30BB Push-Shove or Push-Fold
>30BB have many different option as the big stack.

Does this sound right?

#13 23rd March 2011, 10:51 PM

As the big stack, there is not just one of your "Should"s that is correct. The luxury of the big stack is it gives you options.

As stated before, position, reads, and other stack sizes help to dictate your playing style. Oh yeah, and often even the cards you get!!

#14 24th March 2011, 11:51 AM

The Higher the Buy-in, the less this happens.

#15 24th March 2011, 12:17 PM

you should never coin flip for more than half your chips unless you r on tilt and need to searouisly double up then you have to take a chance

#16 24th March 2011, 6:51 PM

I think it depends how to play AK during the tourna. It can be dominated such as against AA or KK. Or can dominated any Ax. Or be a coin flip against any smaller pair.

#17 25th March 2011, 6:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlam

This is a great forum.

Let's say I am 50-100 BB ahead mid way in a tourn
Should I lay low and let the short stacks fight against themselves and the increasing blinds?
Should I play a regular cash post flop game, calling to see the flop. I know I will be HU with a shorter stack who may push shove on the flop or turn?
Should I play the aggressive pre flop game and fold to a reraise?

You can wait for good hands if you want; your stack size gives you that luxury. But a good use of the big stack is to apply massive pressure to mid-size stacks.

Let's say you have 100BB and the other players at the table have between 10 and 80n BB-- a player raises and it folds to you.

Short stacks are getting desperate for a double up and will call a raise (if they haven't shoved already) with any hand they'll raise with, so you'd need a good hand to get involved here.

If the raise came from another big stack, he might be stealing, but you're putting nearly all your chips at risk to find out. You really need a good hand or a hand that gets good implied odds to tangle with another big stack.

But if a mid-stack player with 20BB raised to 3BB, what can he do if you repop to 10BB? He can really only fold or shove for his tournament life. What you need to do as a profitable MTT player is identify the mid-stacks who raise quite wide, but will only go all-in for their best hands. In this sweet scenario you can steal with ATC.

In the case where it gets folded to you and there are only midstacks behind you to act, you can often grab the blinds&antes with a raise. Be careful of doing this with short- or big-stacks behind for the same reasons mentioned before.

These is are somewhat idealised situations, and you need to be continuously analaysing the table to find those spots where you can steal or resteal without seeing a flop.

You'll notice that the conversation thus far implies that your position and the relative stack sizes are more important than the cards you're dealt; a big deviation from cash game situations.

#18 25th March 2011, 8:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loopmeister

You can wait for good hands if you want; your stack size gives you that luxury. But a good use of the big stack is to apply massive pressure to mid-size stacks.

Let's say you have 100BB and the other players at the table have between 10 and 80n BB-- a player raises and it folds to you.

Short stacks are getting desperate for a double up and will call a raise (if they haven't shoved already) with any hand they'll raise with, so you'd need a good hand to get involved here.

If the raise came from another big stack, he might be stealing, but you're putting nearly all your chips at risk to find out. You really need a good hand or a hand that gets good implied odds to tangle with another big stack.

But if a mid-stack player with 20BB raised to 3BB, what can he do if you repop to 10BB? He can really only fold or shove for his tournament life. What you need to do as a profitable MTT player is identify the mid-stacks who raise quite wide, but will only go all-in for their best hands. In this sweet scenario you can steal with ATC.

In the case where it gets folded to you and there are only midstacks behind you to act, you can often grab the blinds&antes with a raise. Be careful of doing this with short- or big-stacks behind for the same reasons mentioned before.

These is are somewhat idealised situations, and you need to be continuously analaysing the table to find those spots where you can steal or resteal without seeing a flop.

You'll notice that the conversation thus far implies that your position and the relative stack sizes are more important than the cards you're dealt; a big deviation from cash game situations.

+1

#19 25th March 2011, 4:23 PM

Coin flips are all a part of poker. You will be involved in them very frequently. I think it's pretty much impossible to get very deep in a MTT without being involved in a coin flip. Perhaps if you get a sick run of cards in a 9-person SNG, it's possible.

#20 25th March 2011, 6:52 PM

Great post loopmeister.

Whenever I play cash mostly everyone is deepstack.
There's one player who buys in for only for 30-50XBB only and he's a typical push-shove/fold either on the preflop/ flop.
If he doubles up he moves to another cash table and starts SS again.

basically the same stragety
I should add he's a nit and very predictable that he will come over the top with only really good starting hands.

#21 1st April 2011, 2:41 AM

During late stages when stacks get less than 10BBs, most hands where both go all in preflop it's a coin flip situation unless it's PP over PP or PP vs. two undercards. Even with QQ vs. Ace rags, it's really only about 2:1.

Hopefully you did enough in the early to mid stages to be able to afford losing a couple of coin flips. Otherwise, you just gotta be willing to open shove during the right situations and take down the blinds, and hope that you survive the showdowns when you do get called.

Last night I got into a number of such coins flips where I had AQ/AK vs. small PPs. I won some and lost some and made it to 4th. But I ended up losing K9 suited to 82os. BB was getting 2:1 to call my BTN all in, so he called. Cards fall 34756 and it was over for me on the river. That's just the way MTTs go.

#22 1st April 2011, 3:15 AM

dlam i started as a cash limit player played and some NLHE MTT live tournaments. Moved to cash nlhe when the games got really nice with the tv coverage. Now i almost like mtt over cash games. If you have the skills to be successfully in nl cash game you will have Superior post flop skills over most sng or mtt players.

I would recommend the Harrington on hold 'em: expert strategy for
no-limit tournaments . It will give you a lot to think about but i don't believe 100% of what he says. It will give you the main concepts needed to make the transition.

There are several other books that are pretty good as well but he does a good job at how to start to think about the different levels of a tournament.

good luck

#23 2nd April 2011, 6:15 AM

seachicken
I find harrington's book a bit to detail to read. It's more of a reference book to me.
I have began to play some SnG (MTT take to much time for me). Its taken me a while to learn to adapt to the changing stages of a tourn.
I think that's what is major difference among other things between cash and tourn.
In the cash game there a constant style and stragety.
Whereas in tournament play the stragetyand play is changing depending on the increasing blinds and how many players in the table fall into the shortstack cateogory.

There is a psychological difference in recovering from tilting.
In cash if I ever feel like I am in tilt I take a break
In tournament there is no luxtory, sometimes a bad beat leaves you very less than 10BB and you have to stay at the table or get blinded out.
So often i see players have a bad beat and play the next hand really awful.
I think you have to be psychologicaly prepared to your share of bad beats.

#24 3rd April 2011, 5:09 PM

Dlam

I reread my post and left out several things i actually meant to say. I had a sick kid the night of the post was interrupted and never completed my thoughts.

Your post flop skills will make you want to stay away from coin flips early. They are a part of tournament poker but make sure you have the guy covered or are first to act. Fold equity is nice in making these favor the aggressor.

Try to set the tone early that a 2.5bb raise is the table standard. People are cattle they will follow. This gives you the advantage.

I can see where you are coming from on Harrington's books.

Quote:

In the cash game there a constant style and strategy.

Whereas in tournament play the stragetyand play is changing depending on the increasing blinds and how many players in the table fall into the shortstack category.

Sounds like you are picking things up fast. It will also change based on the chip stack discrepancies. If you have one large stack, compared to two large stacks etc. When the blinds get large you can't label players as easily. They change based on their stack. Strategy also changes with bubble play.

Quote:

There is a psychological difference in recovering from tilting.
In cash if I ever feel like I am in tilt I take a break
In tournament there is no luxury, sometimes a bad beat leaves you very less than 10BB and you have to stay at the table or get blinded out.
So often i see players have a bad beat and play the next hand really awful.
I think you have to be psychologicaly prepared to your share of bad beats.

This is true. The good news at a tournament is after a bad beat your decisions are limited in most cases.(under 10 bb). Push or fold. You don't have to worry about making future mistakes that can compound a bad situation because you are on tilt.

I think it is easier to go from cash games to tournaments. Tournament players normally pay a high price for the learning curve.

#25 17th April 2011, 10:59 PM

I dont like to flip only really do it when short stacked, feel the villian is bullying/shoving weaker.. and last but least a game where you pretty much need to flip.. i.e a game where stacks remain at 1500 for the whole game.

or... if I have a villian covered, and someone shoves who I have covered aswell I may call.. depends. I.E if winning this pot puts me in a prime position then sure I may gamble. but still I dunno

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