Should I be cashing more?

I hope this is the right forum because it sounds a little like a beginner question but here goes.

How critical are the starting hands you are dealt to cashing in a MTT? I am fairly new to tournament play, having been a ring game player for several years although I consider myself still a beginner. I play very low limits (sub $1.00) primarily for enjoyment, although I would like to break even and improve my game with an eye to moving up when finances allow. For the month I'm ITM 21.88 (over 32 entries) with an ROI of about 40, owing primarily to a FT I reached. I play mostly rebuys with an initial rebuy and then the double add-on only, and 360 seat SNGs on another site.

I have noticed that my cashes run in groups. For example, I cashed in 6 of 8 tournaments yesterday - barely in all, but cashed - and today I am 0 for 5. Yesterday, I was getting playable starting hands (by my standards) with hits about 20% on the flop and today I was getting none. I'm curious whether this is just something that happens in online poker or whether I need to rethink what a good starting hand is.

A brief synopsis of today's tournaments:

.10 360 SNG, played 24 minutes, lost AA and KK, best hands not played A4o, KTo. I didn't win a single hand in this tournament.

.25 45 SNG, played 43 minutes, best hands AJo, ATo, KQo, KJox2, won three hands

.10 360 SNG, played 74 minutes, won AA & AKo, best hands otherwise A7ox2, QTo only won those two hands

.25 rebuy, played 81 minutes, best hands AKs (lost all-in), AKo, AJo, KJo, won three hands

.50 rebuy, played 22 minutes, best hands AA, AQo, AJs, didn't win a hand - didn't rebuy when knocked out with AA

I am trying to figure out whether I am playing the cards I get wrong when I don't hit on the flop (which is another question entirely) or there are times when you simply don't get cards that you can play. I should add that none of the top hands I was dealt and folded on the flop would have won the hand had I stayed to the river and my only chance would have been an all-in preflop, although in most cases there were multiple players in each hand when it got to me.

I'm not complaining about my ITM or ROI, far from it. Rather, I'm curious as to where to start looking to improve my game.

Sounds like you could be just on a bad run, though 32 samples isn't nearly large enough to determine how you are playing.

Another thing I'll mention, since it doesn't seem that you mentioned it at all, is that your hole cards aren't always the most important factor in a hand. You need to start looking at position, and how that effects your range. Also, each situation is very different, you have to look at stack sizes, blind level, opponent ranges, pot odds, equity, and many other factors.

Thank you for the response. I didn't include any of the other info because I was trying not to write a thesis. I do take position, stack size and other things into account and I know my current stats are slim, which I why I'm not whooping it up over my ITM and ROI - I know they will go down in time.

I tend to play fit or fold on the flop, mainly because at the levels I play, someone is always raising 2400 on a 200 pot and someone else always calls, leaving my over cards looking like last week's pizza. It could still be good if you nuked it and closed your eyes while eating ...

I was trying to start working on my game by narrowing what I can control versus what I can't, thus wondering if the dearth of hands was real or imagined. I will spend more time reading and try to sort it out!

You're info about the s'n'g are incomplete as you don't inform us which ones your are playing as your starting hands are very different for Turbo vs more normal blind lenght games.

I would suggest you put a few hand in the tournament Tournament Hand Analysis (http://www.cardschat.com/f51/) forum.

All the SNG were turbo, forgot to put that in the info. I will post a couple of hands in the THA forum, but I think I figured it out, was playing too tight on top of not getting any hits. I've had a much better day today and yesterday afternoon.

In turbos if you only wait for premiums you're going to blind down too much, you need to be willing to steal a lot

I'd also recommend that you read the Harrington on Hold em series of books which give an excellent tutorial in how to play MTT's. That will confirm or alter the way you approach them.

I'd also be wary of play in some these extremely low buy in tourney's however as they can be populated with people with no clude as to how to play. However judging by your comments I think you relaise that already!

@Tangerine ~ Thanks, I'm hoping to order those soon. I have a ton of books but none do more than touch on tournament play. I've (jokingly) decided that in any given tournament I play, 30% are drunk, 65% are playing .10 because they've lost everything they deposited over the weekend, and the other 5% can only put in $10-20 a month and/or play more for fun than money. I see it as a way to hone my skills at playing the best hand and losing without going on tilt LOL.

I think the biggest adjustment from cash to MTT is learning to play short stacks properly.

You have <50BB for most of the tournament, and sit 25-35BB for a lot of the time. Your options with these stack sizes are greatly reduced and you often face or make decisions for all your chips on the flop.

As a side note, I got raped when I returned to cash games after a steady 2 year diet of tourneys because I gave villains way to little credit for raises and shoves when playing with deeper stacks. In tourneys players will often shove flops with draws and overcards. In ring games (at least the stakes I play - 10-25NL) this hardly ever happens.

DING! So that's why I suck at cash!

BnC

Your ITM and ROI are very solid - good luck keeping it up there. Yeah it's a super small sample but better than some alternatives.

Definitely invest in the Harrington tourney books. This will give you an excellent baseline to work from.

Keep posting, you'll get some help.

+1 on the Harrington books, they're really very informative...

Can't wait to get the books, I need them! I've been on a losing streak the last few days, partly my fault, partly not getting cards. Currently sitting at 22.73 ITM and 53.72 ROI because I won a tournament but I'm maybe 2 cashes for 25 since then. I take small comfort in seeing that the majority of the time I've picked the right hand to go all-in with at the end (70%+ equity preflop) so I'm hoping to continue improving my odds.

I'm trying a new modification on my strategy today and so far have managed to get close to the bubble both tourneys (low 50's with 36 paying) so we'll see ...

If you aren't getting it in behind at least a reasonable amount of time then you're being too tight - if you only ever get it in with 70% or more equity preflop in late game then you're not adjusting and stealing wide enough.

I see your point but lately it's been twenty hands of 93o and the like leaving me with maybe 1200 chips at 125/250 so I go when AJo or similar comes. I'm not expert enough to figure out when to steal as low stack yet - every time I try someone has AA or AQ and snaps me. Last tournament I had A9s, the flop was 943, I went, and the BB had 99. Stealing short is just beyond me right now. What does stealing wide mean, by the way?

The most common answer is you ran into some bad luck.
Not true! it just so happen to be a coincidence that people who win,lose like crazy the next days or even weeks in rare cases month.all i can say in penny pinching and pocket waiting is yo best bet.my odds are horrible i win 75% of my chips from bluffing in the right position.

Say it folds round to you and you're SB with like 8BB, close your eyes and shove any 2.

You need to ignore results.

Eaxactly this ^ (as usual this member puts down the short/concise answer but again it is right on the mark!)

Just focus on making the correct decisions at any given time.

Not sure if I'd want to go with this guy's advice here ^ (after all.. he did just get KO'd recently from a tourney by his own Mom!!!)

First off, to be quite honest with you, I really would give the 0.10 360man turbos a miss. These, along with the 0.02 hyper turbo really are the ultimate donkey invested tournaments you can play for real money. There is pretty much lack of skill involved and you seem to be someone who actually knows what he is doing. You won't find these profitable in the long run regardless of how good/bad someone is in my opinion and this will save you some money and I really wouldn't put these into your stats as reliable sources of itm% and roi%.

I see you play on pokerstars and they recently added (45c,turbo 45man,90man) and these are quite a good little tournament if you have a small bankroll and you can also play the normal speed ones. I would also stick with your 25c 45man along with some 90 man and once your bankroll grows obviously advance to the $1.00 games. These are the ones I played for a couple of months when I decided to donk off all but $7-$10 of my bankroll so had no choice. I built it up to around $50.00 after this time so you can then add some $1.00 games into the mix and gradually grind it all out.

Again, like others has mentioned - you will have to be willing to play a bit more loose in the turbos and also like others has said, your sample isn't really big enough for anyone to give a clear cut answer. The hands you have played though don't seem bad, taking into account what you're most likely up to be against and you're most likely just running bad at the minute.

Keep playing how you are, I suggest the tournaments up above and keep grinding away and most likely you will find yourself hitting quite a few final tables.

Goodluck!

I have always played (and not sure if this is correct strategy, but it feels natural to me), loser if I'm the small stack OR the big stack on the FT of an MTT (or approaching the bubble for that matter), but if I'm the middle stack i'll batten down the hatches and only steal and/or play when the odds are well and truly in my favour.

FWIW - TOTALLY AGREE WITH THIS

I had considered moving up but was a little nervous about the small field in the 45 and 90 man affecting my chances. That was when I was sitting at 66 ITM in the .10 ... now that I've gone 2 for 30 I'm ready to look at all options. I think I can do thirty of the .45 tourneys with what I have left and I guess that should be enough to tell whether I should just pack it in.

Thanks for all the advice!

Well you have much more chance of cashing in the 45's and 90's man's and for better than the 360 turbos. I think I'd take the better structure for the extra 30cents than try grind out those 360's but the choice is yours. That's how bad the 360's are, so you have paid out $3.00 for the 360 mans and by the sounds of it like I say you seem to know what you are doing I'd sooner of just played 6 45cent games of normal speed than 20 of the 360's. Even if you do cash, it's basically only your buy-in back as the better payouts are for 1st/2nd.3rd..I bet you will see much better and reliable results in the 45mans and you can then wait around for your hands rather than shoving some garbage which you have to quite soon in the 360's.

The 45 man are really so easy and you have a BR with 30 buy-ins to sustain any losses of a bad run.

Well, I played three .25 90 man non-turbos today. Cashed in the first one in 6th, came in 13th in the second because I was a moron and broke my own rule about going all-in when there's only one more to go to cash, and the third was such a total donk-fest that I never got going and came in 34th. I'm not sure whether I entered a poker tournament or a fishing contest on that one. I think I like these! I have also learned that Russians are crazy.

Not going all in on the bubble is a terrible rule - if you've got a good hand then you have to go all in. You are aiming to win, not min cash.

Don't worry about samples of 3, you need to play a couple of hundred to get a true idea of how you are doing. Playing more will also help you to get used to the bad beats because you'll have seen it all before.

Well, I was sitting in third, would have cashed high if I had just believed the huge preflop reraise meant the opponent who had played two hands in an hour really did have AA. It wasn't a bad beat, it was a poor call on my part.

I was going to say, with what little there is to go on in what you have shared, my hunch would be you are staying too tight around the bubble and before. This explains a decent ITM, yet an ROI that would be lacking (which might be the case if you subtract a couple of those higher finishes).
You need to exploit those players who are hanging on for dear life waiting for pocket rockets. Of course there will be times where they actually have it - but in the long run you should be able to run over the top of them if you are smart and paying attention. Are you using a HUD?

Yes, I have PokerTracker. In the case that knocked me out, it was the 2nd place player versus myself, the 3rd place player. I had been playing quite aggressively against smaller stacks and just didn't process who I was calling until it was too late. The way the hand played, with the number of hands I had on that player, I should have known I was beaten.

I know I've been playing too tight right around the bubble and am trying to "loosen up". Just came in 8th in another 90-man where I applied the 8-10BB all-in shove theory. I've had a bit of a problem of late running into players I can't shake off a hand, who will call any bet with any two cards and hit but I am learning better how to deal with them.

It's good that you are progressing by breaking these things down. A lot of guys will not progress because they would rather evaluate the other guy's donkitude than their own play. You can't control them so let it go and start with if YOU even should have been in the hand to begin with. Then the same questions at flop, turn and river. If you can do that you can't help but get better. Oh guys will still suck out and the odds will still spit in your face - but as long you are doing what you can it will start to swing in your favor.