Played 5 local live tournaments in 4 weeks and the same thing has happened every time. My style is tight aggressive and I can say I'm the tightest player at the table, if not the tournament. The games I've been playing have been £40 buyins with a field of 40 to 50 players. I use the Dan Harrington principle of affected M' to dictate my strategy at the table in relation to the blinds. After the first break which seems to be 3 hours into the game my affected M' seems to be always in the yellow zone with an affected M' of between 10-15. At this point I seem to always loosen up with my call range and over play my hand. Why am I doing this!!! I feel I get chip envy towards the other larger stacks and over play my hand which means me bluffing or semi bluffing my stack at the wrong pot. Any help or tips with this??... No final table in 5 tournaments is disappointing!!

You said it yourself,,your playing way too tight,,,loosen up,,,widen your card range and be more aggressive. It`s the way of the future.i`m afraid Dan might be a bit of a dinosaur the game has evolved to the point of a total tranformation since the old days of poker. Get with the times and good luck

Originally Posted by MrRed484

Played 5 local live tournaments in 4 weeks and the same thing has happened every time. My style is tight aggressive and I can say I'm the tightest player at the table, if not the tournament. The games I've been playing have been £40 buyins with a field of 40 to 50 players. I use the Dan Harrington principle of affected M' to dictate my strategy at the table in relation to the blinds. After the first break which seems to be 3 hours into the game my affected M' seems to be always in the yellow zone with an affected M' of between 10-15. At this point I seem to always loosen up with my call range and over play my hand. Why am I doing this!!! I feel I get chip envy towards the other larger stacks and over play my hand which means me bluffing or semi bluffing my stack at the wrong pot. Any help or tips with this??... No final table in 5 tournaments is disappointing!!

You are playing kind of right, at the begginning very tight, then in mid game you start to open your range, you have always to pay attention on how people react to steals, 3-bet, C-bet on flop, C-bet on turn, if you realize that one is folding too much on one of those situations you can explore it and get more pots, that's why you need to start more tight, because you have to save chips to those situations, don't lose control of the pot size. Hey, tournaments has a lot more of variance, don't be sad if you are not cashing too much, analyze your strategy try to find out your mistakes and improve it.

Originally Posted by bujjhati

You are playing kind of right, at the begginning very tight, then in mid game you start to open your range, you have always to pay attention on how people react to steals, 3-bet, C-bet on flop, C-bet on turn, if you realize that one is folding too much on one of those situations you can explore it and get more pots, that's why you need to start more tight, because you have to save chips to those situations, don't lose control of the pot size. Hey, tournaments has a lot more of variance, don't be sad if you are not cashing too much, analyze your strategy try to find out your mistakes and improve it.

Cheers for that.. I appreciate Harrington is abit dated but his style does appeal to me. I suppose I need to be more switched on after the late reg has closed and nuckle down. Just as a reference gents, what hands would you open a pot with from early position? If I'm playing to tight at mid level blinds, what range should I be looking at? I've been passing 88 10'10 AJo A9s KQs. I'm realising now this is a mistake. Also I never limp open. If I do open its with a 3 bet regardless of position or pocket cards. As I said my range is tight so I always thought they are good enough for a 3 bet open raises.

Definitely loosen up dan is dated but u can still use some of the things u have learnt off him to make u a better player also it helps to change ur style up throughout the tournament so u don't become easy to read goodluck in the future

Fron early positiins at the beginning of a tournament I would only raise with premium hands, AA, KK, QQ and AK, they don't recommend but sometimes I limp with pocket pairs, mid game you have to play in position, I don't know if it is recommended to 3-bet with all of those hands you said, If your opponent folds way too much for 3-bets that's nice, otherwise I would only recommend 3-bet pre flop with premium hands, that way you can C-bet on flop wirh no worries, and of course 3-bet in lata positions is always better

Cheers for the advice mate. Its Appreciated. You play live regular?

Originally Posted by MrRed484

Played 5 local live tournaments in 4 weeks and the same thing has happened every time. My style is tight aggressive and I can say I'm the tightest player at the table, if not the tournament. The games I've been playing have been £40 buyins with a field of 40 to 50 players. I use the Dan Harrington principle of affected M' to dictate my strategy at the table in relation to the blinds. After the first break which seems to be 3 hours into the game my affected M' seems to be always in the yellow zone with an affected M' of between 10-15. At this point I seem to always loosen up with my call range and over play my hand. Why am I doing this!!! I feel I get chip envy towards the other larger stacks and over play my hand which means me bluffing or semi bluffing my stack at the wrong pot. Any help or tips with this??... No final table in 5 tournaments is disappointing!!

I play a lot of Live tournaments,my advice whould be: try to know the ppl u re playing with,in 10-15 hands u can figger it out,then exploite they`r week spots...i usualy play with them same guys,and i know them...most of them and this helps me a lot :P Ps:beeing agresive i don`t thinck it will help you!

Opponents understand your style of play and use it against you! It should alternate between aggression with tight game! Display for 1 hour, you do not play a single hand! Then boldly forward, and you can bluff!

Originally Posted by MrRed484

Cheers for the advice mate. Its Appreciated. You play live regular?

Not that much, I would like to play more, sometimes there are some tournaments in the cities nearby that I go to, but I need to read more stuff about it

Some poker players contemplate whether or not it would be advantageous to purposely take advantage of the format offered in late registration poker tournaments. In other words, they consider the benefits of registering late for these tourneys rather than buying in on time.

I agree that you need to take advantages of the format offered in late registration poker tournaments. Treat that like the benefits of registering late for these tourneys rather than buying in on time.

You really need to start finding spots to steal in late position. If nothing else, it will save you a round of blinds.

Loosen up your jam range, not your calling range.

Originally Posted by atlantafalcons0

Loosen up your jam range, not your calling range.

Agreed a thousand percent. It is time to take advantage of the weak tight players or 3 betting three players playing too many hands or wide opening ranges picking up dead money is crucial here

Originally Posted by watplays

Agreed a thousand percent. It is time to take advantage of the weak tight players or 3 betting three players playing too many hands or wide opening ranges picking up dead money is crucial here

Yep, with 10-15 bbs he shouldn't be calling at all. He's not deep enough to set mine and any c-bet will commit him so he should really only be raising, preferably all in. It makes me wonder what the range of hands he's calling with there is...

On another note, there are probably spots sooner that he can steal and not allow himself to go into the "yellow" m zone. Stealing the blinds and re-stealing from the blinds can help with this.

Yeah I agree, need to widen your range! I've had the same problem myself.

Players will pick up ur tightness and adjust their play. They'll read you like a Harrington book. Also would look at your blind structure. You're playing a low buy-in so I will assume you are playing in a daily type tournament. Your tournament is going to be 4-5 hours long. You can't always sit around and wait in these tournaments. You've got to be a little loose and willing to gamble. You're getting into this "yellow" area because the blinds increase so quickly.

In MTT, you need to constantly change the tactics of the game, so that you are difficult to read. Try to diversify the style of the game and everything will turn out. Good luck !!!

I myself like playing tight until I get something good, the problem is since so many players call a raise, even playing tight can still not work.

My suggestion is anytime you can take advantage of higher suited cards play it but don't invest so much until you can make a hand.

need to loosen up before you get so short stacked. to tight and they will exploit you every chance they get. need to steal blinds when possible to keep your stack going until a premium hand comes.