How to play a table sheriff ?

Fahrenheit451

Fahrenheit451

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I want to change my MTT strategy.

Up till now I used "Kill Phil" strategy which is basically: The less your stack is compared to blinds - the more aggressively you must play.
This means that in the beginning of tournament you are passive and in the end you play many coin flips.
So, if you loose, it happens at the later stages of tourney and you waste much time. To win you must risk your stack many times at later stages going all in.

Different strategy is to play very aggressively in the beggining of tournament and try to get huge stack and domintate the table.
In that case, if you loose, you do it quickly and do not waste much time, but if you are lucky you can play relatively safe and dominate the table.

I see two ways of dominating:
1) If you have huge stack advantage, you can simply go AI every time, cause villains will risk all their stack on every coin flip.
2) If you have large stack advantage you can combine big bets with any half decent hole cards and big scary c-bets and sometimes all in.

But all this is my reasoning, I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
May be there is some good books about this style of play ?
 
Fahrenheit451

Fahrenheit451

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Gaining large stack is easy, but how to play it ?
 
MattRyder

MattRyder

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I see two ways of dominating:
1) If you have huge stack advantage, you can simply go AI every time, cause villains will risk all their stack on every coin flip.
2) If you have large stack advantage you can combine big bets with any half decent hole cards and big scary c-bets and sometimes all in.

But all this is my reasoning, I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
I find that the odd time that I do end up as chip leader at my table, the best approach is to open with a normal bet more frequently. At this point a 'normal' bet is usually just 2X. Most of the time you will get folds all around the table except when someone has a premium hand, in which case they will jam. When they do that you can then decide how you want to play your hand. If you're holding 72o you don't HAVE to call - you can just graciously drop out of the hand.
 
freeringo

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my advise is to reduce the number of hands you play once you get a big stack and pick your spots wisely
 
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discintildeath

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Importance of awareness

It is critical for you to know how your table is playing. If they start calling your aggressive plays all the time and putting up resistance you need to slow it down. It is great to get a big stack and when the table is aggressive you can be very content to just c-bet to a table that is not hitting back. As soon as they realize you are doing this and they put up a good challenge to you more than one or two times it is time to change it up. Wait for a good hand once that happens and play it like you were when you were loose... This is a good play to start learning as it changes as the table changes. This is the best way to play poker imho.
 
A

AlexTheOwl

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The less your stack is compared to blinds - the more aggressively you must play.

This is a universal rule of tournament poker. Any book you read will advocate this.

The problem is with "Kill Phil" is that it oversimplifies a complicated game. I know it's hundreds of pages, but the approach it takes is rigid. It's "Poker For Dummies", but poker isn't for dummies.

If I read "Brain Surgery for Dummies" I'd have a better chance at succeeding at brain surgery than if I read nothing. But it wouldn't make me a successful brain surgeon.

Being passive early is not a winning strategy, but being tight and aggressive early - learning to pick your spots - is.

Try "Kill Everyone", "The Raiser's Edge", or "Harrington on Modern Tournament Poker".
 
Fahrenheit451

Fahrenheit451

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Thanks everyone !
Time to think and learn :)
 
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