What to do for long tournaments

I can really get some chips fast in the first few levels but once break hits and blinds are high my stack slowly goes away

i'm a tight player its not that i play stupid cards

Any Advice

Can you give some examples of these tournamnts... i

Specificly can you give the buyin structure, i.e. buyin.. are they rebuy, freezeout etc.

The blind structure and time between blinds increasing.

Can you also give the size of the field.

Otherwise its not going to be easy for anyone to give you any real advice.

Usually its Freeroll,180 players, Blinds 15/30 increase every 3 min
when i lose the blinds are usually at 1500/3000 i have a stack about 30k-40k

Oh sorry I forgot to ask .. how many chips do you begin with?

He PM'd me with the info so I thought Id post it to keep the thread going

Just from looking at the the info so far.. I dont think there is much advice that can be given.

I would suggest reading 'Poker Tournament Formular' by Arnold Snyder

Amazon.com: The Poker Tournament Formula: Arnold Snyder: Books


Snyder gives a method of comparing tournamnts to the amount of skill required to win them.

With low, startiing chips, and rapidly rising blinds, the skill level is reduced because a player is not given sufficient room to manuver.

In this tournament you are beginning with 50 BB, but within 3minutes without a doubleup, you are reduced to 25 BB

So you begin mid stacked.. but within 3 minutes you are on the verge of short stacked.

Ill do the maths on it tomorrow if you post the exact blinds, although I would imagine they look something like this

15/30 25/50 50/100 75/150 100/200 200/400 300/600 400/800


To get as far as you are getting is very good.

In the above book, It attempts to estimate the blind level which the final table will occur.. As far as I can see, its a pretty accurate estimate. Thus you can estimate how many chips you will need at that point to not be short stacked.

The only thing I can say is if you look on tournaments like these as lottos, because of the blinds catching you up so quickly, then you can learn to judge the point at which the lotto occurs... so that becomes the level to aim for by using your skill... beond that you have to just accept that you probably will loose but by playing tightly, your chip stack is being rapidly eaten by the blinds.. therefore its more of a mistake to not gamble than it is to gamble. So at that point loosen up considerably and just enjoy the ride!!!

Alternatively look for tournaments with longer blind structures which will allow yo to play skillfully for longer.

As I said check out that book.. It gives an OK stratagy for these types of games.. its not great .. but the analysis of tournament structures is very interesting and not something I have seen written about very often.

Well when the tournament first starts, i like to see more hands then usual because the blinds are practically nothing, i know the `180 sit n go's you are talking about, and once the blinds are up you have too play your hands agressivly. There are a lot of peoploe out there that when they see like 3 people flat call a 3000 blind, they will go all in just too try and take the four blinds and ante's with like a A 3. just calling in big blind situations are usualy not the good thing too do, if you are running low and catch a 10 or better you should just pull the trigger. you can always GO all in whenever you want, but you cant always CALL an all in. Just my little 2* cents 8-)

I don't know how you play... but i find that when i get a strong chip stack that i will play some marginal hands that i would not normally play. eg.. suited connectors etc. Now i don't play them recklessly but over the course of 20-30 hands calling those small bets with marginal hands will steadily chip away at your chips.

Early levels tight is right (although you seem to do okay in early levels and doesn't seem to be the nature of your question here).
Once you've acquired a stack and the blinds have escalated, you need to widen your opening range a bit,.. so.. if you can be first into the pot, from M-LP or LP, try raising to 2.4 - 2.5xbb with all opening hands (whether it be AA or KJs,... or even occassionally say an 8-Ts). The amount of times you can pick up the blinds should make up for the times when they play back at you and you are forced to fold your hand. Pick your opponents wisely though (if you have fairly strong.. and it's a huge blind defender,.. try raising it up a bit more in that case... otherwise stick to the 2.5xbb).
If you're called but flop brings an A or K... fire out a c-bet of just over 1/2 pot and you will find that often times you will take it down without resistance (representing the A or K). Other times you will actually hit the flop hard with your T-8s (for eg.) and if you're confident in your post-flop play, this will potentially bring in the occassional huge pot.

If your table is very aggressive and you're running cardead and are finding that blind steals are very difficult to come by. Then time a 're-steal' from the blinds instead to a known overly-aggressive blind stealer who is trying to hammer onto your blinds often. Put him to a decision with a decent-sized reraise and you should be able to pick off enough to maintain for a few more orbits. OR.. if you figure HJ or CO are raising up with wide range, 3-bet them large from the button... if you don't take it down, at least you'll most likely have isolated them for HU and will have position on them (unless of course they actually hold the goods and end up 4-betting you... this is why player reads are so important).

Speaking of player reads... pay close attention to your opponents and try to put them on ranges (the guy who calls with A-rag O.O.P.,.. you know he's got a wide range for instance).

Once down below 10bb's, shove/fold preflop and make sure you do so hopefully at least one time per orbit if you want to survive. If you allow your stack to fall much below that, you will no longer have fold equity.

I haven't played a 180plyr. sng for a long time now so am not really too familiar with how deep stacked players will be when tourney is approaching bubble. 10bb rule may need to be adjusted if the avg. is low in relation to the size of the blinds.

My memory has already failed me now as to details of what & where this tourney is you're speaking of... but.. I have a 7-page strategy guide for playing the 180plyr. sngs on Stars. I could pm it to ya if you're interested... or maybe I could post it here but would need to quote it's author.. and I'm not sure of those details (only know it was a guy by the name of Mark _____ ?).
GL!

Oh okay.. sorry I see this part now.
With these levels it's basically a super turbo. PAD comes to mind.
Most of the players in those tourneys have no clue on how to play so basically I'd say you just have to push super hard and cross your fingers.
(super large bets on turn or river often a total bluff w air, ... small bets (min.) on flop & turn is often 'weak'.. like top pr. wk. kik'r, or med pr. gd kik'r..... crap like that..... float the flop and check-raise the turn on these donks).
GL!! (unfortunately it'll take alot of luck to do well in these.... skill will be a much smaller factor).

Poker Orifice ... would you mind sending me a copy of that too. Im always interested in reading anything which people think is of any worth.

Thanks

Heyyou01, I would just like to thank you for this question because the same thing happens to me. I do really well early on and then it seems like I sit a little too tight and then it ends up I'm sitting on the bubble and have to push with hands that I normally wouldn't. Enjoyed the information guys. Thanks.

You sound a lot like me. Our problem is not loosening up in the middle stages of tournaments,imo. Can't play it safe all the time and expect to make a lot of final tables.

That's just not true. You can't play tight-passive and get to the final table, but to be fair, you can't play tight-passive and be successful for the most part. You can play tight-aggressive and be just fine. You don't need to play a lot of hands, you just need to get a lot out of the hands that you do play.

Thanks Stu so far. Nice analysis again.

I think this is a 180pl turbo sng for 100FTP points at FT (places 1-2) are paid.

I played it and I think you got the blind structure right.

To sum it up: This is probably always a serious donkfest.

I won it twice and you have to risk playing hands you don't like playing.

TAG playing won't get you far here in everyone - just get sucked out.

These tourneys start every three minutes anyway.

I'd recommend looking at these tourney's as training mode for multi-tableing.

(I set my digital countdown to 3 min and open 4 tourneys at a time)

So much for variance.

Bet harder on made hands if possible.

Yeah these are the constant freerolls that pop up every four minutes on Full Tilt.

These are bingo matches. You have to move your chips constantly to build a stack in these 3 minute blind games. Any situation you believe you're a coin flip or better, you're going to move your stack.

AK in these tournaments are instant move in hands. Any premium pocket is also an instant move in hand. To play these tournaments correctly you have to build a huge stack quickly and because these tournaments only pay the top 1 ... the 180 might be 2... you have to play to win.

I to am a tight player as well.
After first break when the blinds are going up ,i just try to loosen up and maintain an average chip stack when the blinds get bigger.

get money + get paid

do you play that has 3 min blinds? I have never seen these. The Turbos on Full Tilt are 5 minutes. Is this a different site you are playing on? I would advise not playing 3 minute blind tournaments because it basically comes down to luck of the draw and who hits the board.

I wasn't talking about tight-passive, I was talking about tight-aggressive. tag can get you to the middle to late stages of a tournament consistently, but will not get you to final tables. I was talking about going from tag to lag in the middle to late stages of a tournament.