Playing my first slow deep stack tourney soon. Any tips?

Hi all,

I recently qualified for the Sunday Millions Anniversary. Normally I'd avoid such long tourneys but it has to be done for a chance at the big bucks. A couple of things:

1. The game starts with 200x BB (ante on first blind) with 20 minutes blind increases on the first day.
2. There is a 24-hour late registration period and players can rebuy up to 5 times. I will not be rebuying so might be playing against people willing to burn $1,000 and play very loose on the first day of the tourney.

Are there any tips / books / videos for these sorts of tourneys that people would recommend? I'm in it for the long game but want to prepare as much as I can - esp. on bet sizing, how I should be set up in general, mentality etc.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Basically the first several hours will play like a cash game. There will be lots of postflop play, and you will need to be able to get away from second best hands postflop, when you are 100-200BB deep. ICM on the other hand will only play a small role, when stacks are deep and payouts far away.

Since this will be for money, that matter to you, why not practice with a similar tournament for smaller money? At 3.30 pm CET pokerstars has a "daily marathon" for 5,5$, which start with 200BB, and blind intervals are 15 minutes. This will give a feel for, how the anniversary tournament will be, except players in the latter will be a lot better on average.

AsbestosInferno said:

Hi all,

I recently qualified for the Sunday Millions Anniversary. Normally I'd avoid such long tourneys but it has to be done for a chance at the big bucks. A couple of things:

1. The game starts with 200x BB (ante on first blind) with 20 minutes blind increases on the first day.
2. There is a 24-hour late registration period and players can rebuy up to 5 times. I will not be rebuying so might be playing against people willing to burn $1,000 and play very loose on the first day of the tourney.

Are there any tips / books / videos for these sorts of tourneys that people would recommend? I'm in it for the long game but want to prepare as much as I can - esp. on bet sizing, how I should be set up in general, mentality etc.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Click to expand...

Firstly, congratulations on qualifying. I love it when I get to take a shot at a big tourney that I wouldn't otherwise be rolled for.

In faster tournaments, unless you run like a God in the opening stages, you're often down to 30-50BB after half an hour and with that comes the potential for getting your whole stack in with non-nut hands. Slower tournaments mean more time to pick your spots. Feel your way into the game, get to know your opponents. Although you'll have plenty of people ready to take a punt and fire another bullet, they'll also be people like you that are taking a one time shot in the hopes of making their first big cash. You can adapt to both; be systematically aggressive against the tighter one shot guys and be tighter against the looser multi-bullets, but don't be afraid to get the chips in when you're strong.

Good luck and let us know how you get on!