Preflop Strategy for Live MTT vs weak players

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buzzbuzz19

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Played my first live MTT recently and kept finding myself very confused preflop with a medium sized (20-40BB) stack. Online I'd mostly RFI here to 2-2.5x but live a min raise would have me get called by 5 other players. Deepstacked I just upped the raise size, and shorter I just jammed, but I'm still not really sure what to do on 20-40BB stacks. I don't want to have to play multi-way pots, but raising to a bigger size off smaller stacks feels wrong. Appreciate any advice
 
Luvepoker

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Played my first live MTT recently and kept finding myself very confused preflop with a medium sized (20-40BB) stack. Online I'd mostly RFI here to 2-2.5x but live a min raise would have me get called by 5 other players. Deepstacked I just upped the raise size, and shorter I just jammed, but I'm still not really sure what to do on 20-40BB stacks. I don't want to have to play multi-way pots, but raising to a bigger size off smaller stacks feels wrong. Appreciate any advice


Understand how you feel but remember these players who are calling you mostly have week trash. You want them to call you when you have the better range. If you play a sound flop, turn and river play you will win more chips this way. Yes with so many players you wont win as often but the extra chips you getting when you win make it worth while.

I get your frustration when you raise kings and have this happen and the flop is A 9 2. Yup you were out drawn. Would the ace have folded if you raise 3x or 5 x or all in pre? Maybe. You have aces on a 987 flop, yep not happy here are we. Would you have been happy if just one player called in both situations. If there was only 1 player and the called or raised on the flop would you be any happier?

So if there calling to much feel free to raise it more but dont go to crazy here with 20 to 40 BB. Other than aces and kings if you jam and get called are you happy? Probably not.
 
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buzzbuzz19

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Understand how you feel but remember these players who are calling you mostly have week trash. You want them to call you when you have the better range. If you play a sound flop, turn and river play you will win more chips this way. Yes with so many players you wont win as often but the extra chips you getting when you win make it worth while.

I get your frustration when you raise kings and have this happen and the flop is A 9 2. Yup you were out drawn. Would the ace have folded if you raise 3x or 5 x or all in pre? Maybe. You have aces on a 987 flop, yep not happy here are we. Would you have been happy if just one player called in both situations. If there was only 1 player and the called or raised on the flop would you be any happier?

So if there calling to much feel free to raise it more but dont go to crazy here with 20 to 40 BB. Other than aces and kings if you jam and get called are you happy? Probably not.
To clarify you're saying just stick with the standard open size and play multiway? And then I guess I should be playing a tighter range too?
 
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TomCj

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A lot of foldin'

when I am in the 20 - 40 BB area I play pretty tight

I only bet hands with the highest probability of filling
and do not call all-ins preflop unless I have AA, KK

If you do, there's a good probability the other guy will hit his trash hand
and take your money

and that happens all too often


TC
 
Luan

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playing very solid, as they will want to see cards at all times. even more those players who have money to reebuy those who go all in with Ax pair of TT 99 88 77 66 55 44 33 22
 
Luvepoker

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To clarify you're saying just stick with the standard open size and play multiway? And then I guess I should be playing a tighter range too?


I pretty much do stay with the standard size opening range. I may open a bit larger to test the other's to see if they will fold more, but never 3x at this stage of the tournament.

I do tighten up my range to a smarter range if there calling to much multi way. I will take out hands like A6s or A9s as the make top pair but have kicker issues and the cant make straights unless they are 4 on the board. I basically would take out the hands that really cant flop straights and flushes as much. I dont know the range you play so saying to tighten up maybe a mistake.
 
eetenor

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Played my first live MTT recently and kept finding myself very confused preflop with a medium sized (20-40BB) stack. Online I'd mostly RFI here to 2-2.5x but live a min raise would have me get called by 5 other players. Deepstacked I just upped the raise size, and shorter I just jammed, but I'm still not really sure what to do on 20-40BB stacks. I don't want to have to play multi-way pots, but raising to a bigger size off smaller stacks feels wrong. Appreciate any advice


Thank you for posting.


In live MTT we can play a more exploitative strategy. That means we adjust both bet size and range. Based on table dynamics we are focusing on equity realization first then raw equity or fold equity.

The first adjustment you may want to make is playing 30-40bb strategy not 20-40bb it seems minor but as many hands live do not end preflop our main concern is SPR and that is too wide a range to play the same way. Our skill advantage post flop is increased by the larger SPR post flop. When we want to get those folds when we shove we need bigger bets to get it. Fear of loss not range is a more common definer live of calls and folds. Yet many of those folds happen on the turn not flop so a bet flop small shove turn strat may be effective villain and board dependent. We are often bluffing and winning vs second pair hands not top pair or big draws.

We want to split our ranges up with different bet sizing for hands that want folds and hands that play well multiway. Our ranges depend on the agg level of the players behind us so on a passive table we 5x open AA KK QQ -on an agg table we min raise it because we then shove when raised by LAGs. We can fold to nits with QQ (exploitative). We seldom use standard sizing as we do not need to balance. It is fine if the good players on the table fold knowing you have AA if the weak players call.
We do not expect folds so we are not 5x JJ-88 or shoving it. We min raise these hands to have greater SPR post flop. Why the difference AA-JJ? We expect our V to be calling all broadway combo cards even for 5x and then stacking off with 1 pair.

So taking the time to split your preflop ranges for live play based on Equity realization not Fold equity maybe a strategy that has rewards.

One last point we can limp more if the table is passive so we want to limp nut makers and then only put money in post flop when we nut up. So all suited AX is playable from all positions if our V play straight forwardly post flop as we can over fold top pair hands to any action that indicates strength.


Hope this helps
:):):)
 
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