Preparing for a tournament!

Hi everyone,

Im broke but I manage to get first and a ticket prize for the 30K Bracket Final at FF.
The ticket prize is $44 bucks and I was able to get in by winning at the freeroll.

I need some advice for tournament practice. The tourney is in 2 days.

I usually play at freerolls and have never played at a $44 buy in. I was wondering what kind of play to expect from players at these buy ins..

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

How much experience do you have playing tournament poker ?? It all depends on that. If you have very little experience then play as tight as you can but don't play passive when you get a hand pre flop or make a hand post flop.

Avoid pre flop shoves which usually maybe coin flips unless you have 20 bb.
Try and play post flop when you have position.

No bluff. Only play monsters. And you're in the money.

play big hands and look at all the players from the table!

play very tight in early game, and try steal blinds when antes starting, so you run less risk

TAG early game, change gears when you get a read on opponents play style. should get to the money easily as long as you are patient.

I imagine bluffs with position?

yonosemanana said:

I imagine bluffs with position?

Click to expand...

Mostly no. No antes, 20 / 40 blinds NOT worth try to steal when usually lots of calling stations are around and call you with A high or bottom pair. When antes kick in, position, blind stealing, bluffs and basically hole tournament begins.

I would play tight all the way through, no preflop all ins even if ur in position. also only play great hands in position. In my experience when more money is involved people play better and their are less donkeys. So if you play tight and you get screwed by a donkey then at least you know you played right. Im thats where luck comes in. Hope that helps bro

Don't fall in love with pocket pairs. For example, you are dealt jacks in position, it's folded all the way and you raise but get called by the SB. The flop brings a scary card for your holding (an ace, a king or a queen) or it is a wet flop encouraging straight or flush draws... postflop you will need to control the pot. If your flop cbet gets called or worse re-raised, be ready and willing to let your hand go. Even if you happen to get aces instead of jacks in a wet flop and your opponent bets as if he got the nuts, better save your chips for a more friendly flop.

Also, don't be afraid to play implied odds hands. With small pairs or suited connectors, if you do hit the flop with a set, a full or a nut straight or flush, you will most probably double up your stack.

Finally, tight is good while antes are not in play. When antes kick in, start stealing from CO or BU, but be ready to face counter aggression from the SB and BB!! If the tourney has a decent structure, that is, it's not a turbo game, you should be able to get ITM by playing solid poker.
GL!!

Thank you for all the advice. I feel very confident with everything you guys have told me so far.

I will prepare by watching lots of tournament poker and practice play on your advice on other freeroll tournaments.

I will keep you guys updated. Whatever happens I'm grateful for the advice and support

To answer your question expect the unexpected and try not to let the buy-in effect your game play. If you got first in a freeroll that takes patience luck and skill so apply that to the $44 freeroll in your case and you should be fine. I have noticed people tend to bluff more at higher buy-ins but that is not a constant nor is anything else in tourneys. Good luck to you and have fun!

So I didn't make it ITM, but all the advice you guys gave me was great. I got a good read on the table but I found my self very short stack since everyone keep re-buying and because of the add-on option almost everyone had about a 10 to 1 chip adv. over me.

The mistake that killed me:

I had 2k behind, blinds were at 300 and I felt that I had to shove with AJ, I got someone calling me with Kings. I didn't really get that good of cards so AJ felt like aces to me specially short-stacked.
--

I will keep the advice you guys gave me in hand because a lot of players were playing very aggro. I feel that if it wasn't for the re-buy option/add-on option I would of had a better shot at it.

Sorry to see you didnt make it ITM.. there will be other opportunities for sure.

The rebuy/addon option changes everything. Most players use the rebuy period to accumulate as many chips as possible. It makes sense because you will need the stack for the middle and final phase. I guess that most of the advice in this thread was for a regular freezeout tournament. Being tight at start won't work very well with R/A tourneys, especially with those unlimited rebuys during 1 hour.
Cheers!

yonosemanana said:

So I didn't make it ITM, but all the advice you guys gave me was great. I got a good read on the table but I found my self very short stack since everyone keep re-buying and because of the add-on option almost everyone had about a 10 to 1 chip adv. over me.

The mistake that killed me:

I had 2k behind, blinds were at 300 and I felt that I had to shove with AJ, I got someone calling me with Kings. I didn't really get that good of cards so AJ felt like aces to me specially short-stacked.
--

I will keep the advice you guys gave me in hand because a lot of players were playing very aggro. I feel that if it wasn't for the re-buy option/add-on option I would of had a better shot at it.

Click to expand...

What position where you in? With 6-7 bb a shove with AJ is usually fine pre. A better spot might come, but then again you don't have anything in your stack to DU with so it's better to try get some chippies while you can instead of waiting for better cards and have your stack drop down to 3 - 4 bbs. To bad you didn't make it ITM, but it was a great start for you

The whole table started with 3k chips.

So baically, I had the most aggresive maniac to my left. He was playing all kinds of hands like 63os, 92os, and getting very lucky. He was reraising preflop with these types of hands. And betting pot size bets with low pairs. He was getting called and out flopping people. I noticed this and decided to tighten up my game especially since I had him to my left.

There was a guy to the right of this maniac that was tilted (he ended up rebuying like 3 or 4 times for $44 bucks....) that made a tilted all in and I called. I had AQ on the BB and he had 10-4 os and he took half my stack(about 1.5k). I did get it back though when I shoved with AK and he had KQ a little later.
----

Some people to the left of the maniac started profiting although the maniac busted 2 or 3 people. He was a pretty big stack at the table. So I manage to make to the first break when no more rebuys were allowed(there was a total of about 170 rebuys and about 140 addons in total). Everyone on my table added on except two people. The add-on option gave each player 6k in chips. So the rest of the table had about 8-10k ave. and the three of us that didnt rebuy or added had about 2.5k in chips. With the blinds increasing fast I needed that double up to make me at least defend but I couldn't catch any pocket aces or kings, I mean how often does that happen except for a few times to the person who called my all in with AJ when the blinds were at 300.

--
I got the ticket beating 800 people on a freeroll. I would of like the ticket in money but that wasnt the case. I kinda knew that the addon option was going possibly going to hurt my chances.

There was one hand in particular at the beginning of the tournament Qd8d from MP that I could of played if I knew the maniac to my left was going to play that crazy. I would of had a full house and he would of bluffed all his chips to me, but I folded this hand preflop.

>
Another hand which I got the best of the maniac is when I had A10 from the BB and we were heads up. The board came 8, A, 9 and he bets about 1/3 the pot and I shoved hoping he would call with any pair.
I think I should of let him bluff at it one more time on the turn to get max value. I mean this guy was making raises with uno deck cards from EP.


Anyways, Im still grateful that I can come to this forum and get great advice and support.