Unsuccessful in tournament strategies

[koskesh]

I'm a little frustrated because I feel like no matter what strategy I try in online micro tournaments, I haven't been able to see results that indicate I'm at least improving.

When I try to play a tight game, quite often the "good" cards never show up and as the blinds get larger, my chips eventually fade away. And the few times that I do get the AA and such, either no one else has cards to call my raises or some fish calls with "garbage" cards and rivers the best hand.

When I try to play a little looser and see more flops, I rarely ever hit and am never able to consistently guess bluffs correctly and also because of the frequency of me getting rivered, I refrain from betting, expecting my 95% winning chance not to hold up as usual.

My timing for bluffing has been quite unlucky and even if I do start with the best hand preflop, I have the worst hand at showdown.

I have always believed luck plays a huge role in poker and that I have been quite unlucky but expected that over the long run things would even out. But now I'm starting to feel like that I'm just in denial about being a terrible poker player.

Anyways, if you have any suggestions about trying other strategies or have an idea about what I'm doing wrong, please share.

 

[MattRyder]

I would suggest that you take a break from playing and just watch how other people are playing. Take note of how much they are betting, calling, raising, with what kind of hands and on what streets. Look at the results to see if others are having the very same bad luck that you've been experiencing.

Keep an open mind. Question every decision that you see people making. The wonder of pokerstars is that they let observers see just about everything. Use the hand replayer a lot.

 

[debriz]

Try the whole strategy of a tournament champion..watch in youtube maybe try the same strategy maybe 10 times, see what's the result.

 

[dundo84]

I have always believed luck plays a huge role in poker and that I have been quite unlucky but expected that over the long run things would even out.

Yeah luck plays a hughe role in mtt's and nobody can guranatee you that it will even out in the long run.
The best advice i could give you is learn to fold sometimes and save your chips in unnecessary situations.
If you get on tilt sometimes because of the bad beats, just check the players names( who had sucked out on you ) on sharkscope, you will see in most cases those are losing players.Hope that can calm you down.
Keep playing and accumulating experience, you can't do anything about the luck, at the end of the day it's gambling, if you can't handle it then poker isn't for you.

 

[Masi2197]

You must analyze your hands, your bets and your hands, having patience is the key to success

 

[iwont20]

i got a feeling from your post that you need to concentrate on your postflop game skills more than anything.
GL

 

[Thenightrain]

I agree with the some of the above, I think you need to take a step back and refresh your mind.

Trying watching some YouTube videos and while taking notes. wsop ones are often good because it's often skilled professionals vs amateurs so you can learn how to avoid some basic errors.

I also find the national heads up championship ones to be good as it really focuses on post flop play.

 

[Aglarion]

I guess what you are feeling happens to everyone at some point, I think what we need to do in those cases is differentiate what is simply bad luck and what is bad strategy, analyze every hand you play and determine if you did the right play and simply got bad luck or if you made a mistake and there is room for improvement. You shouldn't try to change what you are doing right simply because you had bad results.

 

[koskesh]

Thank you all for taking the time to post your opinions and suggestions.

I have always and continue to watch a lot of tournament videos but one thing that I can't learn from them is being able to successfully read bluffs as well as being able to bluff at the right time. This is an area that I don't even know how to improve on.

Also in online micro tournaments it's literally inconsequential for players to bluff and go all in with bs cards and get lucky. In the major poker tourney videos that I have seen, it's very rare that players play so wrecklessly and this is where I see the difference and the reason as to why luck and not skill plays such a huge roll in online micro tourneys. I don't have HM or any other software to track my hands but I wish I did so I could post here the number of times I have been robbed on the river with the top favorites against the most ridiculous hands that had no place being in that hand in the first place.

I wish it was more convenient and time efficient for me to be able to play more live poker.

 

[masterminsk]

I complitly understand you. I was thinking about it earlier and my decision was to take a break for several days

 

[koskesh]

This was my second or third hand in today's freeroll tourney. Preflop raise was $100 (blinds 10-20) by this lucky piece of sh!t who bets $295 on the flop and when I raised him half the pot he shoved with just a wish and a prayer and I clearly had to call. You can guess what happened on the river...
How would you have played this?