Finishing Deeper

Hey guys,

I'm pretty new to tournament play although I'm a fairly experience ring game player. In my tournaments, I usually finish in the money but usually just barely, and I often have a hard time making a deep finish into any tournament.

Most often, it's because I succumb to a pitfall where I have a good hand and someone has just a little better. For example, I had pocket 9's and flopped a set, but then someone else had pocket A's and also hit their set.

Any advice on how to avoid these mistakes? I need to build my chip stack on big hands but I always seem to get a bad beat sooner or later, ending my tournament life and leaving me with worse results than I had hoped for.

TheHitman009 said:

For example, I had pocket 9's and flopped a set, but then someone else had pocket A's and also hit their set.

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Do you have the hand history so we can analyze the hand.

It's not really an issue of this single hand but more of a general theme of me getting beat out on a good hand when someone has just a little bit better hand that's not obvious. I get what you're saying though, that maybe there's a trend in my play. I don't know how to get the hand history though. I'm not very well versed in online play, but I'm generally a good poker player. If you tell me how to post the hand history then I can definitely do that for you. Thanks for the reply.

It's just bad luck. You can't do anything about it.. something like set vs. set or AQ vs AK or KK vs AA ect. is nothing you can do. But it seems to me that you need to steal more blinds on the bubble to sustain a comfortable chip stack when you're moving up in cash.

TheHitman009 said:

Hey guys,

I'm pretty new to tournament play although I'm a fairly experience ring game player. In my tournaments, I usually finish in the money but usually just barely, and I often have a hard time making a deep finish into any tournament.

Most often, it's because I succumb to a pitfall where I have a good hand and someone has just a little better. For example, I had pocket 9's and flopped a set, but then someone else had pocket A's and also hit their set.

Any advice on how to avoid these mistakes? I need to build my chip stack on big hands but I always seem to get a bad beat sooner or later, ending my tournament life and leaving me with worse results than I had hoped for.

Click to expand...

what about a pre flop raise to gauge resistance big enough to get some sort of read if she seems confident,based on what you have seen from them so far?Same post flop These hands are usally my death knell too

Its all about shifting gears as the tournament progresses and keeping it solid at the same time if you get me?

Stack percentage/call is another thing to keep in mind.

More hand analysis. Preflop bets should give you a good idea of what you were up against. If you're usually losing in situations like this then you're doing fine. This is a rare instance, set over set, getting your money in on a set isnt a bad play....... sometimes.

Set vs. set is just too unlikely, if ur getting it in with a set and someone has a higher set thats just a cold deck... dont worry about that.

Tips for getting deeper:
- Don't play to just cash, play to win the tournament. Dont look at the bubble and say "if i play tight here I will cash..." it leads to too small of a chipstack fight after the bubble.

- Don't worry about your position in the overall tournament, only be comparing your stack to those around you. If you really want to measure your capability to succeed and win the entire tournament, keep your chipstack measured against the avg as that is middle of the field.

- When play tightens up around the bubble, you must learn to be able to steal blinds and antes, this allows you to keep your chipstack up to at least the same level, if not increasing it slowly.

- After the bubble, play should loosen up, especially in larger fields. This means you should tighten up and wait for better cards to go after people. This wont work if your shortstacked, if you are, wait for position and shove with any good looking starting hand.