Strategy Needed

[pamelasue 0]

We have a NL hold em league going ... usually get between 25 and 35 players each tourney ... our starting stack is usually $1500 or $2000 chips ... blinds increase every 20 min and there are no ante's ... the aggressive blinds are designed to make the tourney end in under 5 hours. Playing conservatively doesn't work well because you'll quickly be blinded to death ... there isn't a large enough starting stack to play true 'small ball' poker ... I've been successful in the past in this league but I think that a lot of it has to do with getting lucky ... the stack size isn't big enough to get anyone to fold ... a lot of the players are 'calling stations' ... there is rarely a re-raise .... I'm looking for help developing a better strategy to deal with this type of tournament ... any suggestions are welcomed!

[rrumsey 0]

what do the blind levels start at?

[gazeebo 0]

well... even with a field of 20+ id say start with at least 3500+ chips, but your tournament setup is up to you guys. id play the first 3-4 levels pretty tight and hope to pick up a few big hand-over-hand pots. if that happens and your stacks 1.5-2 times starting after an hour, speed up and start picking up pots. dont completely open up tho, but loosen up a little. with that structure, you need to play fast. what it really comes down to is position. playing against a ton of calling stations all you can really do is play straight-forward and outplay them. good luck man

[rrumsey 0]

go balls deep with big hands. i mean the structure is such that if you are card dead early, after an hour an a half you may have to start shoving. I guess the only good thing is no antes, gives us a few more hands

[HighwayStar 8]

go balls deep with big hands.

[coug2828 8]

if there's rarely a reraise, try reraising more

[pamelasue 0]

what do the blind levels start at?

10/20 ... double every 20 min ...

[Biff Goods 0]

There is a free bar league I play in occasionally when a few of my friends are out getting hammeredThe structure goes as so. Start with 2000 chips25-5050-100100-200200-400500-10001k-2k2k-4k5k-10k10k-20kThis is every 20 minutes I believeThere is usually 30 or so that show up and I'm pretty sure it gets finished in like 3 hours. Needless to say....it's awful...But.....they sell these really big beers while you play so we don't care....My point is..This tourny (skill wise) pretty much sounds like yours and here is my strategy. I play nitty as hell for the first two blind levels but if I do get dealt a hand I push it hard...I mean hard....Then later I just start shoving anytime it folds to me with pretty much any face card. It doesn't really matter. By the time you get to 200-400 you just don't have enough chips to do anything else. -----------------------Now funny story about this tourny...a friend of mine and I played in one and I went out mid tourny or so...I walk over to his table and he has like 30k and everyone else at the table has under 9k. He tells me that he got AA and KK back to back and took like 4 people out cause they just called (one with 10 7 off) off all their money. I talked him into just putting the entire table in blindly every hand and he did. He ended up winning but he had so many chips at HU it was not even funny.

[rrumsey 0]

get them to bump it at least to 30 minutes levels and maybe try and get a starting stack of 3k. most of the people are probably so bad that it will still end pretty close to the same time depending on how the HU play goes. But that would give you a little more room to work. gl past that

[pamelasue 0]

this league has been around for 4 years ... we're at the start of season 5 ... they're not going to change the format because I ask them to ... once in a while they do what they consider a deep stack (5000 chips) but that is rare ... if I want to play I need to deal with it as it is ... thanks for all of the replies guys!

[outsider13 0]

Play them like a turbo sng, because basically the structure is similar as far as hands/level. Tight early, shove later. Whatever Biff Goods said basically. The key is once it gets to a 10bb stack or less, just shove, don't raise. People like to fold when it's for all of their chips, so even the calling stations will fold at this point. Just play unexploitable poker.

[kreppsen 0]

He ended up winning but he had so many chips at HU it was not even funny.

Lol. I played a similar tourney like this, shoved it hard and got into headsup with a 60k stack, against this other guy, that had a little under 3k. The blinds were 2K/4K.

[Eba12 0]

dont drink beer while playing

[TCA 0]

There is a free bar league I play in occasionally when a few of my friends are out getting hammeredThe structure goes as so. Start with 2000 chips25-5050-100100-200200-400500-10001k-2k2k-4k5k-10k10k-20kThis is every 20 minutes I believeThere is usually 30 or so that show up and I'm pretty sure it gets finished in like 3 hours. Needless to say....it's awful...But.....they sell these really big beers while you play so we don't care....My point is..This tourny (skill wise) pretty much sounds like yours and here is my strategy. I play nitty as hell for the first two blind levels but if I do get dealt a hand I push it hard...I mean hard....Then later I just start shoving anytime it folds to me with pretty much any face card. It doesn't really matter. By the time you get to 200-400 you just don't have enough chips to do anything else. -----------------------

Hey newbie here. I've been reading this site for a the last few days and some of the advice is really thoughtful and insightful.I play in a very similiar situation at my local pub to the game you describe. The chip stack starts with 100,000 and the blinds begin at 1k/2k and doubling every 20 minutes, occasionally 15 mins ( 1/2, 2/4, 3/6k etc).The same group of players tend to play on a SNG style table with approx 7 players. It's generally a loose table with a couple of calling stations and generally some players who really mix up their play and are hard to read. Over time it's been easier to profile them as to their playing style (somebody once let slip that they'd play almost any two cards suited etc among other tells) and I'm starting to pick up some tells specific players have.The problem I find is because of the speed of the blinds, by sitting out the action as the loose players battle it out early it can become increasingly difficult to get back into the game as the blinds rise to 5/10k. Raising pre-flop doesn't seem to deter these players and they can play anything like a rag-Ace or off suit connectors even when faced with a raise. The great about this is that when you hit a set or a flush you get paid for it but stealing blinds is very hard to achieve. It's almost like these players are so attatched to their blind they must defend it.I've had plenty of success and I win about 1 in 4 of these SNGs but I'd rather be much more consistent - In time I hope to move up to higher buy ins but I don't want to till I've mastered this level. How do you conquer loose players with the blinds raising rapidly? Waiting for the top hands can put you in the short stack.

[donk4life 34]

Strategy quit the forum. If you look, all of his posts have been deleted.

[TCA 0]

Strategy quit the forum. If you look, all of his posts have been deleted.

Not sure who you're addressing here.Incidently, how active is this forum? There doesn't seem to be much responses in most of the threads.

[Eba12 0]

i think its kinda active@tcaIf u cant steal the blinds dont bother trying with garbage hands. And be aggressive with premium hands pre flop to try and get some people out before the flop.If u have hands that can possibly improve like low pocket pairs try to see the flop as cheaply as possible and if u get the set you will get paid off if u dont dont be scared to dump it.Playing any suited cards is just not gaining you money in the long run. Playing suited connectors can pay you off tough.And winning 1 out of 4 you play is a good result already I would say.

[cnc41729 0]

WITH NO ANTE'S YOU REALLY HAVE 2 GET LUCKY CAUSE THERE ISN'T NO PUSH FOLD STRATGY I MEAN YOU CAN STILL PUSH FOLD BUT DO IT WITH AROUND 10 BBS AND WHEN YOU STILL YOU ARE JUST WINNING 2 SO ONLY WAY YOU CAN DO ANY GOOD IMO IS NEVER RAISE FOLD NEVER NEVER NEVER DO THAT AND YOUR GOING 2 HAVE 2 GET LUCKY THE BLINDS RAISE 2 QUICK SO THERE IS NO PLAY ONLY PLAY YOU HAVE IS GETTIN LUCKY WHO EVERY CATCHING THE BEST PREFLOP IS GOING WIN I WOULDNT' EVEN WASTE MY TIME PLAYING IMO

[cnc41729 0]

AND JUST TRY 2 BEAT THEM PREFLOP DONT PLAY POST FLOP IF YOU LOSE 1 LOSE EM ALL

[donk4life 34]

AND JUST TRY 2 BEAT THEM PREFLOP DONT PLAY POST FLOP IF YOU LOSE 1 LOSE EM ALL

THIS IS REALLY STRONG ADVICE.

[TCA 0]

Ah ok. Like I said I do fine in these games but I'd rather become much more consistent so I can feel comfortable moving up a level. It just seems that luck plays such a big part when the blinds reach 8k/16k with a starting 100k stack.I find winning at that table requires really simple tight-aggressive play because they're too stupid to recognise tricker play. If you raise pre-flop they just call. It's almost as if they feel left out if they don't play a hand every time! It can get frustrating....and it really doesn't seem that active. I figured a poker forum with Daniel Negreanu frequently active on it would be thriving but apparently not so.