Are Big Hands Required to Win Big in MTTs?

Blue_Fossil · Jan 21, 2013

Unfortunately, my schedule does not allow me to play more the occasional MTT. When I do, I stick to Deepstack tourneys (non-Turbo) with a decent guarantee. The most common one I play when I have time is the Bovada’s $4000 Guarantee DS.

I’ve cashed in the event a couple of times, but only by limping off the bubble and winning basically the minimum amounts. I tell myself that all I need is to catch a big hand at the right time in order to make a deep run. The big hand never seems to come.

So, is the big hand required in order to score big? Or can one get by on skill and guile alone?

More background for those that kept reading. I apply a ‘small-ball’ approach to these tournaments. This works well for me and usually helps me build a decent stack, particularly in the first hour. Trouble then usually comes in two forms in the 2nd hour. The first is the short-stacks shoving - which at best knocks me out of the hand, or worse, elicits a call from me and a subsequent loss on the inevitable coin-flip. The 2nd problem is landing at a table with one of the big-stacks that knows how to bully the table. This leaves me needing to connect in order to win pots.

Any strategies or suggestions?

micalupagoo · Jan 21, 2013

stop limping to the money was my biggest problem for a long time
better to bubble many times, if only once you make final tbl/top3 or the win!!
i do try and avoid bigstacks without a monster hand- tho you must know with big stacks comes a larger range they will play- so opening your range a bit is okay and reraising /shoving against them when your cards are good (or if you have a tight image any2 cards are a good bluff too)
bully small stacks (and scared money) near bubble (avoiding big stacks)
position is a real key element too
as well as tbl dynamics, what kind of players (tight passive/loose aggressive) and so on...every game/hand is situational so theres no 1 answer
gl

dino · Jan 21, 2013

I don't think big hand is required, more skills and patience, and of course good luck
your AA can get cracked by some marginal hand if the other player have better luck hitting something
with bully, wait and bait, becuase you know he will try to bully you

dj11 · Jan 21, 2013

Can of worms ITT.

I too go the small ball route, and try to avoid big confrontations with serious consequences. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There are those who espouse the 'In it to win it' approach. And they follow up with it requires aggression, and then more aggression. I think not. While I am not saying aggression is bad, I think that as an overall strategy, it has its place, and when overused, can be deadly.

Bottom line tho, in any tourney, at some point you have to make the big decisions of whether to call or fold what looks to be a pretty damn good hand against another players aggression.

Beware the DBPD (Distracted by the Big Prize Delusion), a newly coined term for a situation that has done me in lately.

bz54321 · Jan 21, 2013

Is this the 11$ buy in or the more expensive one? How big are the fields?

If its the 11$ there is a 8k game on Sunday afternoon for the same price the field was about 1100 this weekend. Top 3 all got over 1k.

Try to steal from people limping along. If you have a good size stack and the low stack that is flipping is pretty small do the flip.... Depending on how many people are left to act or have already decided to flip with the short stack.

kidkvno1 · Jan 21, 2013

micalupagoo said:
stop limping to the money was my biggest problem for a long time
better to bubble many times, if only once you make final tbl/top3 or the win!!
i do try and avoid bigstacks without a monster hand- tho you must know with big stacks comes a larger range they will play- so opening your range a bit is okay and reraising /shoving against them when your cards are good (or if you have a tight image any2 cards are a good bluff too)
bully small stacks (and scared money) near bubble (avoiding big stacks)
position is a real key element too
as well as tbl dynamics, what kind of players (tight passive/loose aggressive) and so on...every game/hand is situational so theres no 1 answer
gl

+1

Playing back into a bully works

triplesyxx · Jan 21, 2013

Beware the DBPD (Distracted by the Big Prize Delusion), a newly coined term for a situation that has done me in lately.

[/QUOTE]

Love this concept...how very true it can be to many players

Sent from my iphone using Tapatalk

Beanfacekilla · Jan 21, 2013

My $0.02

MTTs are very high in variance. You may not make the cash often. When you do, a min cash just isn't what you are looking for. It is important to go deep the times you cash, if you want to win overall.

If you sit and wait for primo, it is tough to make the money. You must exploit the weak players. You know those types that limp in MP. Then they call a raise. Then they check the flop, fold to aggression.

Position is so important I can't stress it enough. Position.

Luck is a huge factor too. Sometimes you are just running hot and making the money is easy. Sometimes others are running good, and just can't be stopped (jonathon duhamel).

Just my opinion. I am not an expert at MTTs, but I have won few and ran deep in a few more.

Edit: Don't limp. Don't enter pots in early position with garbage.

Ronaldadio · Jan 21, 2013

I play lots of MTT`s

Yes, you need to have big hands, but they need to hit.

You must gamble from time to time and I can't remember what top pro said it, but u have to win more 50/ 50`s than you lose.

I know there are lots of theories out there - the `M` theory for example.

I have my own. During the MTT I am happy to stay in the middle third of the field, waiting to get a good hand. I then bet that good hand hard - at this point I want a double up.

If at this point I double up, that opens the door to stealing or waiting for another good hand - depends how I feel.

If I drop into the bottom 1/3 of the field, I'm looking to get my chips in even as a slight dog - I'm not going to sit around all night to `possibly` win 3 x my buy in.

As Sammy Farha said (I think it was him) "Sometimes to live, you have to be prepared to die"

Blue_Fossil · Jan 21, 2013

Appreciate the comments...

To bz54321, I usually play the $10+1 4K guarantee that starts at 8:30pm Central Time. The field ranges from 450 to 650 when I'm playing - which is normally a Friday or Saturday night. I'll play maybe once a month or so, as my schedule allows. So variance can really affect my results.

I have definitely been guilty of tightening up just to get in the money. That's where my need to hit a big hand comes in - Just get me in the money and let me hit a monster against a big stack and watch me run!

jazzaxe · Jan 21, 2013

I think taking advantage of the weak players or weak table if you are lucky enough to get one. Once the antes kick in I tend to overbet if I am first in and at least MP. When they start playing back, I will wait for a quality hand. Losing close pots... well, you need a bit of luck there

RiverMeTimbers · Jan 27, 2013

Blue_Fossil said:
Unfortunately, my schedule does not allow me to play more the occasional MTT. When I do, I stick to Deepstack tourneys (non-Turbo) with a decent guarantee. The most common one I play when I have time is the Bovada’s $4000 Guarantee DS.

I’ve cashed in the event a couple of times, but only by limping off the bubble and winning basically the minimum amounts. I tell myself that all I need is to catch a big hand at the right time in order to make a deep run. The big hand never seems to come.

So, is the big hand required in order to score big? Or can one get by on skill and guile alone?

More background for those that kept reading. I apply a ‘small-ball’ approach to these tournaments. This works well for me and usually helps me build a decent stack, particularly in the first hour. Trouble then usually comes in two forms in the 2nd hour. The first is the short-stacks shoving - which at best knocks me out of the hand, or worse, elicits a call from me and a subsequent loss on the inevitable coin-flip. The 2nd problem is landing at a table with one of the big-stacks that knows how to bully the table. This leaves me needing to connect in order to win pots.

Any strategies or suggestions?

Big hands definitely help to make it deep into tournaments; It's important to know which hands to play in different situations and when to bet/check/fold/reraise etc in different situations is crucial. Look for reads at your table and find the players on tilt and stay away from them unless you have premium hands (easy chips)

Lucothefish · Jan 28, 2013

Ronaldadio said:
As Sammy Farha said (I think it was him) "Sometimes to live, you have to be prepared to die"

It was Amir Vahedi but that doesn't make it any less awesome/true.

It takes skill, guile and rungood to go deep - there's no one 'right way' of getting there either. I always suggest playing nit for less experienced players though as it makes decision making a lot simpler.

WEC · Jan 28, 2013

"Sometimes to live, you have to be prepared to die"

Lucothefish said:
It was Amir Vahedi but that doesn't make it any less awesome/true.

Ah, someone mentions Amir Vahedi. What a life he had, what a character he was, and a top poker player/degen besides. He struggled a long-time with nothing, fought it out in low daily MTTs (and the larger MTTs when people would back him), and did whatever he could to make a few bucks. He was always great to be around, was quite humorous, and always had a big smile, even if he was degening a lot of money in Pai Gow Dominoes.

I was so happy for him when he finally started to consistently hit it big in poker, and so sad when his life ended at the early age of 48. The guy went from a small-time player to $3.2M in reported wins (he had much more if you count all those tournaments not reported) in a pretty short time frame.

He had an interesting history on making his way to the US, fighting for Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, and leaving the army to make his way through several countries illegally, finally ending up in the US in an immigration prison. Before playing full-time poker he drove Limos in the Los Angeles Area.

Didn't mean to derail, just reminded me of some good times, and of a good human being.

LuckyBundy13 · Jan 28, 2013

It really comes down to one key thing you said. You don't play many tourneys anymore and when you do, sounds like you're nitting yourself to the $. It feels like you're not getting you "share" of good cards. I think you just don't play enough. You my friend, have to make moves. Change your own luck dude.

inflnlte · Jan 28, 2013

You should really be aggressive and not worry so much about the money bubble. Don't let your stack to small. And a lot of times, yes, you need to get lucky and catch big hands. And lucky is not just getting big pairs - but also getting your opponents to have worse hands.

bz54321 · Jan 28, 2013

Blue_Fossil said:
Appreciate the comments...

To bz54321, I usually play the $10+1 4K guarantee that starts at 8:30pm Central Time. The field ranges from 450 to 650 when I'm playing - which is normally a Friday or Saturday night. I'll play maybe once a month or so, as my schedule allows. So variance can really affect my results.

I have definitely been guilty of tightening up just to get in the money. That's where my need to hit a big hand comes in - Just get me in the money and let me hit a monster against a big stack and watch me run!

Start running from the begging and try to build your stack as fast as possible. One thing I do is check in on a tourny I want to play when it gets to the final table. You are looking for what the average stack is. So in a 45 man tourny it will be around 10k. I try to get to the 10k mark as fast as possible then slow way down. From there pick your spots and try to slowly build it higher. Then when you are in the money you should have a nice stack to run with.

dj11 · Jan 29, 2013

Played a tourney last night where I would describe the cards as downright blah!

There were no big hands to get into for me. Both times I got AA I got no action. I made it barely ITM, barely! Still nothing came, but patience allowed be to move up the pay ladder. I kept waiting for the cards to change but it didn't happen. No great result, but it was a positive outcome. Best thing for me was again reminding myself that patience is as important as big cards in most tourney's.

That game was on Bovada. If I had a HUD, it felt like my VPIP would have been 8.

bz54321 · Jan 29, 2013

dj11 said:
Played a tourney last night where I would describe the cards as downright blah!

There were no big hands to get into for me. Both times I got AA I got no action. I made it barely ITM, barely! Still nothing came, but patience allowed be to move up the pay ladder. I kept waiting for the cards to change but it didn't happen. No great result, but it was a positive outcome. Best thing for me was again reminding myself that patience is as important as big cards in most tourney's.

That game was on Bovada. If I had a HUD, it felt like my VPIP would have been 8.

I agree with this also. There is more than one way to win.

Sean Pilgrim · Jan 29, 2013

You want a super slow almost guaranteed cash? Bovada's Ante-Up tourneys. Last night I played I think it was $11. 30 players. We got to the final table 4.5 hours later. With blinds at 25/50 and 250 Antes. It was so gruelingly slow that I got fed up and started going all in every hand when there were 4 players left. Finally 5 hours and ten minutes into the tournament I busted out in 4th for $36.

If you have more patience than me you can win more.

Sean Pilgrim · Jan 29, 2013

All my facts are jacked because i hated this tourney lol

dj11 · Jan 29, 2013

What was the starting stack? Ante's start first hand? How could it last 5 hours?

DStump · Jan 29, 2013

the 4k guarantee at 930est is my favorite tournament to play in. i try to make almost every week night. I have placed up to 2nd and this and top 10 a few times. I dont think you have to win massive hands to place high. Ive been literally last 3 in chips since 80 or so people and came in second. it seems that the people with all the chips end up doubling everyone up anyways.

dj11 · Jan 29, 2013

DStump said:
the 4k guarantee at 930est is my favorite tournament to play in. i try to make almost every week night. I have placed up to 2nd and this and top 10 a few times. I dont think you have to win massive hands to place high. Ive been literally last 3 in chips since 80 or so people and came in second. it seems that the people with all the chips end up doubling everyone up anyways.

I agree. But you will find this can of worms will bring big arguments from the group of players who think min cashes are nearly useless. I can not remember finishing first when I was CL when the bubble broke, but I can remember winning a tourney by barely squeeking into the money on more than a few occasions.

Yes, this could be selective memory.

con1 · Jan 29, 2013

I am not an expert but I have found when I get around the bubble people seem to freeze up hoping to make the money this is when I get more aggro than I have been playing it helps chip me chip up also try as best i can to stay ahead of the average stack I also pay close attrntion to my M it helps to make descions

Are Big Hands Required to Win Big in MTTs?

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