Winning with Small Pots in Tournaments

[albosaltenio]

the article is very good, standard.
Everything depends on which rivals we have in front, I touched to lose with maniacs who play with weak hands but in the river the cards give they the nuts.

allways in the tournaments in the first levels is very difficult to find a correct bet as we find players who run the game with absurd bets, but once the game is in the final levels the standard bets work much better.

Anyway, controlling the game with these standard tips gives very good results in most cases.

 

[migesan]

As Riders said I like to keep pots small in the early stages
But, as we approach the buble we increase the stake, so that later, when we are sure, we reduce the pots.

 

[MTCashman]

Small bets are a good way to entice action, I find that most people will not fold to a min raise so if you want action that might be the way to go. At the same time, you don't want multiple players in the hand which will make it more likely your hand will get cracked. In a multiway pot I would only small bet with a monster hand because you will likely be called by a couple of players and it will build the pot nicely.

 

[Rijckenborg]

It was a perfect article to help me improve my bet sizing.
Without proper bet it's hard to win chips.
For sure, bluffing is wrong in multiple callers pot.
I know this by experience.
I like to setup some traps

 

[AizenFalck]

I started reading the article and realize that is the way I love to play. It is really difficult sometimes to keep playing with a small pot once you are near the bubble in some poker stars tournament, I really feel that even if it is a good way to keep a low profile during some big bets, you must play following your instincts even if that can get you aout of the tournament, sometimes this situation can be inevitable

 

[Hackerosito]

Very good article and totally in agreement, this part is interesting because already advanced the tournament we must analyze the serious players of villains, defend our cards and know how to regain position of game. With premium cards and identify those players who with marginal cards want to steal the pile.

 

[Debi]

A small flop bet is around 25 to 35%.

The article says it is 50%. 50% is true for cash games.

In tourneys.

Small: 35% or less.

Medium:40% to 55%

Large: 60% to 90%

Very large: 95% to 135%

Glad you chimed in with this - have to agree with you. Half size betting would be what I consider standard - would definitely go lower if trying to keep the bet small.

Thanks to everyone for your discussions and feedback in this thread!

 

[miamia]

The lost art of the raise .
I agree with that,but on hyper and super turbo tourneys youre forced to play more hands and risk with huge range of hands.Today almost all freerolls are hyper with 3.min blinds.

 

[Blueberries]

This is a tricky one. I purposely constantly change the way I raise, so others have no idea what I'm doing.

Lots of players will make huge bets pre-flop. Whatever the flop brings, they will make another huge bet rightaway, mostly to steal your money.

I've learned to mostly not call those bets, but they remain very annoying because I've lost a lot of -what could have been- good pots.

I don't follow all those tips for 3-bets and 4-bets, I just follow my guts and think of what I would do if someone would make a certain bet at a certain moment during the game. I guess everyone has their own tactics.

 

[Muzyka1996]

When there is small pot and the desire to win the chips, you can always lose a lot. Therefore, you need to make a decision on the rate of your opponent, depending on the style of his game

 

[Gary_Heart]

I gotta love this article and that "a raise is a declaration of war against the table" analogy with focus on the stack management aspect of a raise.
One thing though - the "compound effect" bet sizes mentioned seem to assume that intelligent good players are playing ....

Sure you want to raise enough to push out weak hands - just remember those chasers betting big on their two outer!
The advise for bet sizes Preflop, Post Flop, Single Caller and Multiple Callers (while I'm not in total agreement with) was very enlightening.
Learned a lot - Thanks

 

[CRStals]

One downfall that many players early in their career do is play big hands for big pots and this article does a good job at attempting to show that you can't always do that.

However, as one becomes more comfortable playing tournaments, all tournaments have different playing styles depending on the circumstances. For example, playing small pots in a 100% KO tournament may actually be -EV. Weaker opponents become more vulnerable to being pushed all in, and winning small pots against them may make it harder to win their bounty.

Second, identifying the types of players is key as playing the player is as important as playing the cards. Example, on a tight table, say a bigger buy-in, it may be more advantageous to steal more early knowing you can get away with it. Conversely, on aggressive tables it's important to be selective into what pots you enter, and use other tools available to win those pots - three bet squeezes, three bet bluffs in position, limp to induce a check-raise post flop, etc.

I will say that varying the size of the raise to isolate is key as you'll give odds to others in the hand if you don't adjust for early position limpers.

Finally, it's important to realize that playing for your tournament life early rarely works. Sometimes you need to fold because you have someone at your table that three bets every time they are raised into. Again - knowing your opponent is critical to select your hands properly and be prepared knowing whats coming.

 

[MstrBlast3r]

I really enjoyed this article. The 3x BB open has always been the guideline I used. I see plenty of people who advocate for smaller opens around 2.5 BB. For me, the math is easier at 3 . The key take away is to be careful not to build pots that force you to commit where you are in a bad spot. The constantly raising blinds in tournaments especially online will take care of that for you.

 

[Infinity Objective]

I 'd have to agree that for larger-largest buy in / high-highest stake prize tournament, high roller freezeout tournaments this guide makes great sense, and is very conservative, tactical and intelligent.

I just don't see it being solidly applicable in low level games, non-freezeout high level of late registration, re-buys, addons, freerolls, low-mid stake/ low-mid stake prize, these type tournaments.

The first category (before "The Raise") should cover where and what kind of tournaments this is best applicable. If someone says this is universal I'd say that reality is sure debatable.

 

[king11682]

What I learned here is that you do not have to risk, you have to go slow and with minimum bets to stay as much as possible in the tournament depending on the strategy to follow in preflop turn and river, according to the big blind with respect to your stack , to not make mistakes and you stay in shortstacked very fast and you have no choice but to go all in very early in the tournament.

 

[Alexandr Svinarshyk]

I try to support what is written in the article well, in most cases the desire to win a big pot overcomes me and so I lost many times.

 

[AgentXtreme]

I never paid attention on that early stage sizing , I think I have an idea after reading this article , I used to standard 2x 2.5x or 3x preflop and most of the time half pot on postflop .
But I think this sizing is always depending on the position and especially the oppenent.

 

[legendary819]

actually is imposibble to win with a small pot in tournaments because ho has the most chips wins every time i think pokerstars favorize big stacks

 

[Katyushka4]

I'm not really successful at playing with small pots. Article and advice is very good. Yet the strategy to bet 3/4 of the bank is my favorite. And it really works when you want an opponent to call. When I put the entire pot - my opponents fold most often. I liked the point about limpers. I'm a poorly educated person in poker. And I never knew before that to 3-bet it is necessary to add on 1BB for each limper.
Yet I am in the process of moving from the category "fast and crazy" to the category "slow and steady".