are pros immune to bad beats?

It's really a simple and Stupid question wrapped into one , are they immune to bad beats? I was on OPR (for w/e reason), and noticed there is this Stars player who's made over 2 million in Mtts in like 4 months, so then I started wondering how can this player make such amounts in so little time? This in turn actually gave birth to more questions like Why Can I win say 180 Fields, and 300 Fields but not over 8k fields, why can I play decent certain times against certain types of players yet at the same time do so horrible against other players? Now these questions lead to more questions and so forth and so on.

Then I started really question what it takes to run deep in big field Tourneys, like that one player who Got 650k in the Sunday Million 5th anniversary how did he do it? Also at the same time why pros aren't doing it...

I myself that day was watching to known pros 1 of those pros (Happened to run into a Overly aggressive player, that never folded a single hand and thus his 44 lost to that players A5s), the other pro made some Elaborate Move (By 4betting light preflop with AA against an Idiot that wasn't folding 88 and the board came K55, turn was a 5, and all the money went in and river was an 8)...

Now If there not making deep runs in these Fields (Then how the hell am I supposed to do it)..

Now there's pros like Jasson Mercer the dude is Impossible (At least last time I looked to stop), So what I'm asking is what does it really take to run deep in these big filed tourneys, I've never won past 500 players, but I try, and yes the Stakes I play at is field with idiots and morons and donks and Luck boxes but I don't mind those because luck does run out.. Yet is the Million also field with those same types of players? What about the Higher Million the $500 version of it? Hell what about the $640 Monthly millions over on Party?

All I'd like is some advice anything is better then nothing...

Ty

I'm the same in terms of 8k fields, I struggle. Never won one with thousands of players, came close a few times, came 12th in a facebook one with around 4000k entries.

I think it boils down to mid play more than anything, I've tried several different strategies, being overally aggresive or tighter, both have mixed results. I think it's more of a case of experience and being able to put other players on hands. It's like a player called "ramondemon77" he's a MTT god, he wins at least one "big" tournament every month. He's won the Sunday Million, Sunday Warm up etc and wins a standard 800-3000k player MTT's quite regularly and has nearly over one million in winnings. The sick thing is, he started only just over 2 years ago in the 360 man 0.10cent turbo's on PS and grinded his way up. He quite often on AVG has around 20-100k per month in winnings.

I supposed for a pro who has won several hundred thousand and are quite comfortable for money they just shrug it off and carry on with the next because they know they will be long term winners in the end anyway.

jason Mercier is another good example, he knows how to play and when to turn it up and tone it down. Often runs very good in large fields and you're right, the lower limit ones don't know how to fold and the higher limit fields people know how to fold more. Thing is, if someone has put in a pre flop bet and you re-raise with a mid pair, they feel they put money in so are now in need of staying in the pot so willing to shove.. That's the big difference in my opinion, people just can't let go of a hand in the lower limits and willing to shove with nothing because it isn't a lot of money the buy-in.

Umm.. how is 4-betting w AA.. considered '4betting light'? (you've lost me there)

They guy who won ~$650k & the Lambo actually already had profits on pokerstars of over $1.25million & has been around the poker community for a fair bit of time (for awhile some weren't quite sure if he was a she... or she was a he.. but that's another story, LOL).

Why don't you go deep in largefield tourneys? I'm not sure but I've noticed a handful of things that you seem to do fairly regularly (ie you tend to turn hands w showdown value into bluffs, fairly often). A few other things I have noted on you... and have only been on your table for a limited number of hands. Also, certain players tend to have similiar styles/traits as others who play similiarly to how they do (in certain spots/situations, etc.)... some of these are picked off by players who've played alot of donkaments.

Might not be the reason you're not going deep in largefield... idk... just sayin' what I've noticed.
gl in the next one!!

Larger buyin tournaments will typically have a good number of donks in them if there's a bunch of satellites for them. Tournaments like the $100rebuy, $200rebuy, or anyothers that don't have sattys will mostly be filled with good players (with a few rich donks in the mix too). Also, the SunMill is notorious for having ALOT of donkeys in it & has a poor structure (which also turns into more of a luckfest).

How does one win a largefield MTT? I look at them as bein' lotteries... it's just that the better players show up with more tickets at the start.

Poker Orifice said:

Umm.. how is 4-betting w AA.. considered '4betting light'? (you've lost me there)

They guy who won ~$650k & the Lambo actually already had profits on PokerStars of over $1.25million & has been around the poker community for a fair bit of time (for awhile some weren't quite sure if he was a she... or she was a he.. but that's another story, LOL).

Why don't you go deep in largefield tourneys? I'm not sure but I've noticed a handful of things that you seem to do fairly regularly (ie you tend to turn hands w showdown value into bluffs, fairly often). A few other things I have noted on you... and have only been on your table for a limited number of hands. Also, certain players tend to have similiar styles/traits as others who play similiarly to how they do (in certain spots/situations, etc.)... some of these are picked off by players who've played alot of donkaments.

Might not be the reason you're not going deep in largefield... idk... just sayin' what I've noticed.
gl in the next one!!

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About the 4 betting light part P.O with the AA, I think the one player raised to like 900 and this player 4 bet to like 2200-2500 this is actually small correct, that's all I meant rather then light btw? rather then raise a nice amount to say 3k-3500 that's all I meant?

BTW ty for putting my game on blast

naruto_miu said:

About the 4 betting light part P.O with the AA, I think the one player raised to like 900 and this player 4 bet to like 2200-2500 this is actually small correct, that's all I meant rather then light btw? rather then raise a nice amount to say 3k-3500 that's all I meant?

BTW ty for putting my game on blast

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Whether a 4bet is light or not is based on the cards, not the bet size. The size of that 4bet seems pretty reasonable as well. Hell, that might even be a bit high for the 4bet, I'd have to see stack-sizes/blinds/etc. to really know.

re: deep runs - much of it is patience and volume. The guy who grinds up from .10 360-person to winning sunday millions probably plays at least 50 SnG's/day. Maybe winds up buying into 10+ MTTs any given Sunday, etc.

Poker Orifice said:

How does one win a largefield MTT? I look at them as bein' lotteries... it's just that the better players show up with more tickets at the start.

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This is basically how I view largefield MTT. You've heard of a guy named Phil Ivey perhaps? How many 5,000+ entrant tourneys has he taken down in his entire poker career? I'm not 100% certain, but I believe the answer is zero (at least, none of the big ones).

It requires a tremendous amount of luck to make it through those huge fields, and those who can do so regularly imo need to have some good fortune on their side and a lot of volume.

However, having a big skill edge does make playing these large fields +ev, in that as P.Orifice said it's like they are starting the tourney with multiple lottery tickets. So let's say... Joe Fish has a 1:7,500 chance of winning a 7,500 person tourney, an average winning poker player on CC has a 1:3,000 chance of winning the tourney, and Phil Ivey has a 1:500 chance of winning. When you look at it, 1:500 is pretty terrible odds-wise, but if you consider that he and Joe Fish are paying the same amount of money for that drastic a difference in odds... well, it's easy to see that Phil Ivey's entry is "worth" a lot more.

I have the same question about posters here who say, "I started with a freeroll win of $2 and built it up to $200 within a couple of months playing MTTs."

Um, I'm not going to call you a liar, but ... you're either playing a nearly inhuman number of games per day to overcome the ridiculous levels of variance, or you're not being truthful.

You can do everything perfectly in those things and lose on the most ridiculous bad beats. Frequently.

I'm baffled as to how anybody would be immune from that.

Salty Mouse said:

I have the same question about posters here who say, "I started with a freeroll win of $2 and built it up to $200 within a couple of months playing MTTs."

Um, I'm not going to call you a liar, but ... you're either playing a nearly inhuman number of games per day to overcome the ridiculous levels of variance, or you're not being truthful.

You can do everything perfectly in those things and lose on the most ridiculous bad beats. Frequently.

I'm baffled as to how anybody would be immune from that.

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Funny that you say that, because that's what happened to me. And I'm not gonna lie, I was just incredibly lucky. freeroll for $6, chopping the $6 CC +$200 for $85 (in which I hit 2 2-outers), than winning 2 out of 4 $4 Rush On Demand SNGs to get me to ~$700, which I have built (playing within BRM) to ~$1150.

Whenever I get a bad beat I can always think, "I got incredibly lucky and should not even have the money to be playing this."


To answer the original OP's question, to win a 5k+ tourney, you have to be incredibly lucky. Skill will help get you to ITM, and also build chip stacks, but in the end tourneys are all about winning those 60/40s, 50/50s, and probably get at least one suckout.

cardriverx: I guess I didn't think about how luck + not sticking with the principles of bankroll management + good play could get somebody up there fast.

Still seems as if FAR more often than not that would be the formula for a quick bust-out, not that path to success that I've seen more than a few people here discuss.

Salty Mouse said:

cardriverx: I guess I didn't think about how luck + not sticking with the principles of bankroll management + good play could get somebody up there fast.

Still seems as if FAR more often than not that would be the formula for a quick bust-out, not that path to success that I've seen more than a few people here discuss.

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100% agree. I say if I tried that again, 95% of the time I would just lose it all, no matter how good I played.

The tournaments with large fields require an incredible amount of luck. Nobody wins the main event without getting lucky a few times. In Phil Gordons little green there's a chart of the odds of surviving an all in pre when you have aces and your opponent has kings. I'm not going to post the chart but the odds of surviving if you get all in preflop AA over KK you will only survive twenty percent of the time. Now your not always going to get it all in AA over KK so your chances are even worse when you end up stacking AJ over KQ obviously your getting it in decently here but if you do this three times in a tournament your gonna be taking a seat on the rail unless you get lucky. So to sum it all up it takes an extreme amount of luck to win these but the more skill that you have is obviously a big plus.

mikejm said:

The tournaments with large fields require an incredible amount of luck. Nobody wins the main event without getting lucky a few times. In Phil Gordons little green there's a chart of the odds of surviving an all in pre when you have aces and your opponent has kings. I'm not going to post the chart but the odds of surviving if you get all in preflop AA over KK you will only survive twenty percent of the time. Now your not always going to get it all in AA over KK so your chances are even worse when you end up stacking AJ over KQ obviously your getting it in decently here but if you do this three times in a tournament your gonna be taking a seat on the rail unless you get lucky. So to sum it all up it takes an extreme amount of luck to win these but the more skill that you have is obviously a big plus.

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I have The Little Green Book, but dont feel like finding the page, but I would suggest YOU find it. Im not trying to be mean by saying this, but saying AA vs KK is only surviving 20% means you need to re read at least that page...............


Since I have (and use) Pokerstove - and I suggest you get and use it as well - I decided to see what it says AA vs KK preflop:

AdAs vs KdKs (and same suit AAvsKK is the same here) : AA is 82.63% favorite

Make them different suits i.e. AdAs vs KhKc: AA 81.25% favorite.

Salty Mouse said:

I have the same question about posters here who say, "I started with a freeroll win of $2 and built it up to $200 within a couple of months playing MTTs."

Um, I'm not going to call you a liar, but ... you're either playing a nearly inhuman number of games per day to overcome the ridiculous levels of variance, or you're not being truthful.

You can do everything perfectly in those things and lose on the most ridiculous bad beats. Frequently.

I'm baffled as to how anybody would be immune from that.

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Salty Mouse said:

I have the same question about posters here who say, "I started with a freeroll win of $2 and built it up to $200 within a couple of months playing MTTs."

Um, I'm not going to call you a liar, but ... you're either playing a nearly inhuman number of games per day to overcome the ridiculous levels of variance, or you're not being truthful.

You can do everything perfectly in those things and lose on the most ridiculous bad beats. Frequently.

I'm baffled as to how anybody would be immune from that.

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Actually I've built up a few accounts in the past, all starting from very small freeroll cashes.
DoylesRoom in '07 I won $2.20 in a freeroll, played ALOT of 10cent STT/SNG they had on there (I actually found the play in those back then to be better than a typical $1-$3 on Stars). I then got another Freeroll cash for ~$14.00 then played a bit of 10nl NLHE usually only enough to qualify me to play in their 'raked hand' freerolls & I played in lots of them ($500 freerolls, $700entrants, top 250pd.). They had Stud, PLO, NLHE, etc. I final tabled a few of those which also helped the roll.
Continued to play on there, but basically used it as a 'fun' account & ran it up to ~$750 before I lost interest. Then once they switched over to Cake network I never played much on there again.

That ^ is just one example of one pokersite built up from a $2 cash in a freeroll. A site I never bothered to play much on or ever took very seriously at all. I have others too (4 other sites) but not gonna post details but will mention that Doyles wasn't the site I had the most success on by any means & on all the others I strictly played NLHE Tournament play (no cash tables & usually no sng's either).

I'm sure there are MANY others on this forum who've had similiar success starting from scratch.. and many more who have done FAR better than my own micro accomplishements. (I know for fact that there are some who are earning enough to live off of, all from an initial freeroll cash & never depositing a single $).

This is a bit of a derail & not meant as a brag post at all (I'd be bragging if I had 5-figures in my accounts but I don't). Just wanted to set the record straight that it is possible & has been done alot.

fletchdad said:

I have The Little Green Book, but dont feel like finding the page, but I would suggest YOU find it. Im not trying to be mean by saying this, but saying AA vs KK is only surviving 20% means you need to re read at least that page...............


Since I have (and use) Pokerstove - and I suggest you get and use it as well - I decided to see what it says AA vs KK preflop:

AdAs vs KdKs (and same suit AAvsKK is the same here) : AA is 82.63% favorite

Make them different suits i.e. AdAs vs KhKc: AA 81.25% favorite.

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This is not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying if you were to run AA vs KK eight times the odds of you winning all of them is 20 percent. So even if you get your money in great like this in a tournament you still need to get lucky not to get sucked out on. In the course of a tournament that has a large number of entrants your probably going to have to get all in a few times and to not get sucked out on at least once. I'm not trying to advocate folding AA preflop because you haven't gotten sucked out on recently I'm just pointing the luck involved.

The way MTT "pro's" seem to be cashing all the time is a skill edge over the field + volume.

I know 2 pro's that play MTT's on stars for a living, they play every single $10buyin +, so its likely that some of these guys are playing anywhere from 12-25 MTT's at once.

tenbob said:

The way MTT "pro's" seem to be cashing all the time is a skill edge over the field + volume.

I know 2 pro's that play MTT's on stars for a living, they play every single $10buyin +, so its likely that some of these guys are playing anywhere from 12-25 MTT's at once.

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Yeah its a pure volume thing I would say, if your going to sit there and put your focus in to a single mtt then its going to hurt if you get took out with a major suckout. If your playing many tables you will be preoccupied with doing your best in the others. I think you get desensitised after a while playing sngs and mtts but I would say everyone tilts sometimes even the most calming looking players will tilt at some point, some just have different thresholds.

cardriverx said:

Funny that you say that, because that's what happened to me. And I'm not gonna lie, I was just incredibly lucky. freeroll for $6, chopping the $6 CC +$200 for $85 (in which I hit 2 2-outers), than winning 2 out of 4 $4 Rush On Demand SNGs to get me to ~$700, which I have built (playing within BRM) to ~$1150.

Whenever I get a bad beat I can always think, "I got incredibly lucky and should not even have the money to be playing this."


To answer the original OP's question, to win a 5k+ tourney, you have to be incredibly lucky. Skill will help get you to ITM, and also build chip stacks, but in the end tourneys are all about winning those 60/40s, 50/50s, and probably get at least one suckout.

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Yes, I have a similar story to yours. Came second in freeroll for $12, then got lucky winning a $2.25 MMT for $160 and never really looked back from there. It is certainly possible, although unlikely given the variance involved.

And winning a 5000+ field does require quite a bit of luck. Say you are all in 10 times during that tournament and are called. Every time, you are 70/30 favourite to win (really unlikely to have such a big advantage for starters). Even then you are still expected to lose 3 out of those 10 times. But certainly having decent poker playing skills will mean that you constantly finish ITM then your random fish.

Not all pros get to the last stages, the ones being railed are most certainly because of bad beats or bad calls, although if tey're good pros they should be able to evade the second ones.

I think in my little bit of knowledge picked up in the year and a half i been playing online, that in a large field size tournament i would rather have luck on my side then skill, but yeah naturally if you could have an equal dose of both of them then that would be ideal.I think online the luck factor will affect your game more then live, live i would rather have more skill then luck,imo

Most online pros that are MTT have HUGE volume. If you look at their stats I imagine theyre still only in the money around 15% of the time. Which is a good number and add to that theyre playing so many multi-tables. Makes it look like theyre lucky but I'd say most are Certainly putting in their hours and hard work.

I don't see anyone that is immune to the bad beats. Many of the pros seem to play the odds and strictly limit the potential of getting caught by the bad ones.

Thanks for all the advice guys....I always wondered how these pros could keep winning over and over again without a bad beat taking them out.

well if we say that a Pro gets his chips in good more often than an amateur, then statisically the Pro would get more bad beats and the amateur would get more suck outs ... u cant suck out if you're in good and u cant take a bad beat if ur in bad

now that very much oversimplifies things ... a Pro that understands pot odds and knows when he can afford to gamble might suck out, but in a calculated way and against a stack that cant hurt him too badly

like everything in Poker, there are lots of layers to it

Pro = understands that bad beats are part of the game and takes it as such.
Dead money = whines, complains and tells endless stories of how 'they can never win with Aces'.