How Can I improve my game without breaking the bank?

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thefwa

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So, as you can see I'm a beginner and this may belong in the beginners forums. But please try to answer this the best you can, and give me advice on what to do and not to do, also this is quite a long read so get ready!

However, I'll give you a brief insight on my poker experience so far.
So, I've read most of Harrington's volume 1 on tournament poker, and figure to play a super conservative game. I didn't realize how much more I needed to read but experience is necessary to get better nonetheless.

I just came back from my first tournament, I'm pretty young (21) and a lot of people noticed that and words were thrown around at me. I was excited to go to my first MTT as I have never been to one, so I got about three hours of sleep and wasn't at the top of my game in any sense.

I pay $25, not a hefty price in any sform, but something that can add up to a lot when trying to learn, especially for a college student, with a hard major and a part no job. There was a $5 RB and a $10 AO (many were using both of these)
We all start with crazy low chip stacks (ones that I was not expecting) having 1500 chips with starting blinds of 100/100.

Right away I'm sitting in a table with 9 other players (I'm obviously the youngest), I bring my girlfriend so she can moderate my habit, and make sure I'm learning and not spending my money on something that will end up ruining me.
I throw away A LOT of hands until I get AA (on the button), the player to my right is a super aggressive player, he's had to rebuy 3 times so far, because he knows he can.
We all start with crazy low chip stacks (ones that I was not expecting) having 1500 chips with starting blinds of 100/100.
He raises me 1200 (seeing that I'm conservative), I go all in 2 others call, I win the hand and quadruple up.

I don't play again for a while, I get AA again in mid position (a little before the rebuy period ends), I raise 4 times the blinds, everyone folds I win the blinds. Stupidly, I show my hand, the player to my right now has me pegged and starts throwing insults at me for being a beginner. And My girlfriend shows up after walking around the casino and he asks if she is my sister to insult me in that she is very pretty, I was having fun with it.

Rebuy period has closed, I don't play for a while once again, blinds are now 100/200.
Finally, I get KK, in small blind position. I raise four times the blinds. The player to my right calls, and a few others do as well. Flop comes out 4 6 Q. I raise 800 (MISTAKE), they all know I didn't hit the flop, and they all call. The person to my right tells me "You're about to learn your first very expensive lesson.." he raises high. I go all in, they all call. I show KK, he laughs and somebody else hits a straight. I'm out of the tournament. One of the players mocks me saying, "This kid probably thought he would win the tournament calling his mommy after he won", it didn't annoy me, but I knew now how ruthless some of these players can be to discourage beginners and young players.

I knew I should have checked to see if anyone had me beat. I've played a lot of online poker (play money), but they are nothing in comparison to the real thing. And I do not want to spend an incredible amount of money "learning". Before this, I had decided to play once a week, improving my game each time. However, here's the kicker, I have played in low stakes $3/6 ($1 small blind) and turned $40 into $280, a few weeks prior. Ever since then I had fallen more and more in love with the game and all of it's glory.

My goal after that tournament was to see if I could make it past the bubble within 6 months, if not I will quit the subject entirely on the odds that I am not suited for it.

Finally my question, What should i do to get better? Will low limit poker make you better in tournaments? How can I learn effectively without spending too much money?



Also please be nice, I'm new and hopefully I don't get too many "WRONG FORUM" replys
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read and respond to this.
 
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MAX101

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Well thefwa, 6 months to learn how to play poker really isn't long enough, your not giving yourself a fair chance,I'd say maybe a couple of years,but to give yourself a fair shake learn as much as you can about odds ,outs ,and something that really can be learned the hard way lol patience, patience, patience,seems alot of us get bite by that poker bug just like you, keep it fun, an don't let it get the best of you!!!
 
skiptomyloot

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it all comes down to staying in control. and don't give into bad habits. learn to play really good, do what you usually don't expect. like study, take notes. everything you can use to improve your game.
 
Mase31683

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I wouldn't play in a tourny with that structure, seriously. It's a crapshoot, unlesss villains are clueless and weak. $1,500t and $200 in blinds? You're starting with M = 7, that's horrible.

That's my first bit of advice for you, always know the structure ahead of time. You don't wanna find out the way you did that it's crazy. I mean, at the first blind increase everyone's M is < 5 unless they've done some chipping up. Even if you doubled up already you're still at M=10.

With this structure tight is NOT right either. You need to fight to stay ahead of these blinds. You have 7.5 orbits (75 hands) before you've been blinded off so you need to move fast out the gate and either bust out or build up a stack.

Oh, are you saying $5 unlimited rebuys? Omg yeah if I'm in the tournament I'm jamming so wide early on just trying to get some chips because you have to. This is definitely being run at some guy's house (the $25 entry gives that away, but this structure is so stupid. Howard Lederer actually gives really good advice on starting stacks and blind structures to run a good tournament).

Holy crap, next paragraph says this is at a casino....I'm dumbfounded.

Man, now I'm just confused. $3/$6 with a $1 small blind? Oh dang, you're talking limit. Haven't seen that talked about in...holy crap literally a decade. It was over a decade ago that I was a limit player...sigh.

Okay man, here's the deal. First you have a lot to learn up on. If you wanna play in that tournament with that structure, you need to read up on endgame states for tournaments. That's where blinds have grown in comparison to stacks, and it'll give you much better info on what proper tournament play will be at your event.

Limit Hold'em, love that game always going to have a place in my heart cuz it started me out. But no, that will not help you at all in a NL tournament. Also, if you are playing limit and you have less than 7 big bets on the table, you are wrong. You are so freaking wrong I can't begin to tell you.

I would never EVER sit with less than 30 big bets, I'd rather have 50-60 in front of me. The casino I played had unlimited raises once heads up, and I'm not making mistakes that some other people do, so I wanna make sure if they didn't have the nuts and I did that I can get max $$$ in the pot. But even without that, say it's capped. You can't even play a single pot for max bets.

Cap it preflop all day at Low Stakes Limit, there's $12. Now you have $38 behind? Even if flop goes bet/call, you have $35 with a potential of $48 of bets to get in. Never handcuff yourself.

On that KK hand, yeah you did make a huge mistake and it sure wasn't betting. It was that you only bet a tiny amount of the pot into a large field. Yeah, you didn't "hit" the flop, you didn't have to. You had an overpair. You made it $800 to go preflop and "multiple" people call, let's say 4 to make it easier. So now the pot's $3200, and you bet 1/4 pot. I don't get why the one guy is laughing either, what'd he have? Sounds like the guy with a straight won so that guy laughing at you either just got crippled or knocked out too.

And you'd already quadrupled up, how did these other guys have bigger stacks than you?

tldr:

- That tournament structure is mindbogglingly stupid, I just wouldn't play
- If you want to play in it anyway, learn tournament poker theory for low M gamestates
-Low limit hold'em probably will not help you in learning to play shove/fold tournament poker. Nash equilibrium charts, and Sklansky Chubukov (sp?) might a bit.
-Overall, I'd pick one type of game and focus on learning it first. Tournament, Limit, or NL. My transition from limit to NL was a little resisted at first, but I never looked back once I picked up NL. I grinded my face off at $20/$40 limit, and got almost the exact same hourly as half-assing it on $200nl.
 
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thefwa

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Thanks for the reply so far everyone, oh that guy to my right was just a "dick". He got out of the tournament just so he could make sure a beginner like me would too. I really didn't understand the concept. When I first came in and saw that we literally had SEVEN chips I was mortified, especially when people were throwing them in there all around. It made me assume that this is what many tournaments began with, I felt all possible skill would really just be diminished when raising basically warrants an all-in bet every time when the all-in bet is so near by, it didn't turn me off to the subject whatsoever it just made that entry fee basically worthless for somebody who doesn't want to try to steal the blinds/double up every betting round before the RB/AO period.

Any coaching sites you would recommend/ what should I do to get better at the game in general?
 
rifflemao

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I wouldn't play in a tourny with that structure, seriously. It's a crapshoot, unlesss villains are clueless and weak. $1,500t and $200 in blinds? You're starting with M = 7, that's horrible.

:dito:

I recommend that you find a local live tournament league to play in. It will give you a chance to establish reads on players you'll see regularly, and help you build confidence in your game.

Harrington on Holdem is a good start. Also check out videos by Gripsed on Youtube for free training, or you can pay as low as $10 a month for a training site like FloatTheTurn. There are plenty of others, but I don't know their pricing.

Look forward to joining the Freeroll Club here when you're eligible. Lots of great players and it's a good way to build your online bankroll.

The best way to learn is from your mistakes. When you make an error or questionable play, pull up an equity calculator like Equilab to learn why the decision was fundamentally bad.

If you're able to play on Bovada, you can learn by studying the face up hand histories. Use a replayer and critique your play.
 
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So it sounds like you are fairly new to poker, reading Harrington's volume 1 on tournament poker. It also sounds like you have a very tight, nitty style of play.

Without really discussing the tournament you played in, I recommend you really study up on the various strategies and theories of poker more deeply such as pre-flop ranges, equity, range analysis, bet-sizing, etc...the basics.

If you are interested, I just started a micro stakes study group community, microgrinder.com and we have one member that is an MTT specialist that is doing a bankroll building challenge. We are also doing a forum series on mastering holdem basics concepts.

Now getting back to your KK busto hand. Where you ahead on the flop? It appears someone sucked out. If you raised on the flop and we ahead, it was not a mistake. If someone sucked out with a set of 4's, 6's or Q's then its a bad beat. If someone put you all-in with about 30% equity with an OESD, then you're flop all-in was fine as well.

To improve your overall game, I suggest you join a study group like mine, focus on getting rock solid fundamental theory under your belt, and practice playing micro stakes cash game and tournaments.

I also recommend cash over tournaments because the variance and downswings in tournament play down right sucks. You can go a very long time without making the money, so your bankroll needs to be much larger than if you play cash. For example, it is recommended you have 30 buy-ins at your stake for cash games. For tournaments it is recommended you have 100 buy-ins to withstand the downswings.

You can Skype me if you want to chat as I'm not on this site too often. Skype username is microgrinder.com
 
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thatgreekdude

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CardsChat provides freerolls if you didn't already know, some really good players that you can learn a lot from and you can win cash prizes without risking any money.
 
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You never know if youll be winner

My best advice is to play as many sng where buy in is small and try different bet sizes and see the outcomes. For example when flop comes JJ5 on flop and u have 26 and u have a guy whos raisins 80 percent time preflop, and u make fold most time its ok to fold if he would raise on flop again but once in while even with 26 its good idea to make reraise min bet because he knows your folding all these hands hell think u most have it, as for the AA genereally u raise but theirs rare times when u arent playing alot hands where either calling if u know everyones probably gonna fold so the player hits top pair when flop comes or, min raising because they cant fold for minimum and its kinda like trapping.
 
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The first thing I would recommend is finding a new tournament. If I am reading this correctly you are starting with 15BB. That is a super short starting stack for a mtt (especially a live one). Your plays don't seem all that bad but it's hard to tell without more information. Starting stacks, blind level, what stage of the tournament and table dynamics are very important in how a hand is played. I also read harrington tournament series 1-3. The game has changed since those books have been written. There still is a great deal of relevant info in those books. I really liked reading kill phil and kill everyone. They are very different and goes over a more aggressive style found in modern tournaments. I also like all of Ed Millers cash game books. I know your playing tournaments but being a good cash game player will give you a edge when 300BB deep in a tournament. Keep playing and post hands on forums. You will get better very quickly. Good luck.
 
Samango

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Unfortunately this topic and op also appears here [old link~tb]
with several answers.
I think the mods will be able to merge them (and delete my post, thank you)
 
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steviewayne69

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who's to say? what works for you may not work for the next guy, I read the post, and I thought, that we know you've got a tight playing style, problem is that to maximize your potential, good hands are not enough; using position which you did with Aces on the button; sometimes it's not enough. I personally do not show the hands because I like the opponents to keep guessing. While position is important having a hand with good showdown equity is also important, assessing the ranges of hands with which your opponents play, etc. these are all good tools especially the suggestion of improving your cash game strategy to improve your strategies in MTTs and STTs.
 
Debi

Debi

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Merged 2 duplicate threads - please do not create duplicate threads in the forum.
 
sam1chips

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The only way you are gonna get better is be practicing. For $50 or $75, you could deposit that on an online account, and play $1 buy in tournament or 0.02/0.05 no limit cash games, and learn how to play, learn what work, what doesn't work etc.

That (along with reading the forum!) will help you learn stuff. Like the KK hand, for example...there was 3200 in pot pre-flop, and you only bet 800 on the flop. (Note: when you have KK and the flop comes out Q84, that is a very good flop! It is relatively unlikely that somebody has a better hand than you, because there is no ace on the flop).

Addition: never show your hand! Especially if you are a rookie/uncomfortable. That just lets people know how you play
 
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