Best Books For Middle And Late Stage Tournament Play

[raiderrr79 0]

Hey everyone, this is my first post on the website. This past weekend i played in my first live tournament at event#5 a the wsop circuit in atlantic city. The field was 451 and I placed 90th, money was 45 and better. I think i played really good poker most of the way, but i feel like my middle to late stage game has weakness in it. In the beginning I played cautious poker, managing pot size and eating up chips from players I felt were weak. I made good calls on bluffs and maximied payouts whereever I could. I had 53,000 in chips within the first 3 hours of play while the chip average was still 7,500. I ran into a couple coolers and was still around 40k at the dinner break when the chip average was around 13k. Once blinds were at 400/800 with 75 ante I felt like I started to leak chips and had a pocket pair get beat by a four flush on the board.I ended up getting eliminated on the following hand: I had pocket jacks in the cutoff with 22k in chips. the player two seats to the right of me raises to 2600 and I reraise to 7000(up until that point on the table most reraises on a raise have not been called). He calls and the flop comes KQ7 all clubs. I hold the jack of club and I put him on AK or AQ based on his previous play. he checks and I bet 5000, he quickly reraises all in. I didnt think he had a club and I figured considering the minimal amount of chips left(10k) I would call and hope for a J or club. I didnt hit and went out in 90th. I think the right move I should have done would have been to push instead of betting the 5k to try to get him off the hand.If anyone has any advise on how I should have played this better please help me learn. Also in general as I mentioned earlier I began leaking chips and quickly declined from a chip leader to an average stack once blinds got heavy. If anyone knows of a good book or site to learn better strategy for middle and late stage MTT live tournaments please let me know...I think if I work on that part of my game I can really made some money after some good reading and learning.THanks.

[SwolyswoND 1]

I don't know of a book specifically to help you with this, but posting hands like the one you mentioned will help. My analysis of that hand:You have a very awkward stack size. You have about 28 big blinds but antes are in play, so it really plays like you have 20 big blinds or so. If you do reraise (which you should) then I think a shove is best. Otherwise, your stack size is just too awkward after the flop, as you discovered. You yourself said that after he c/raised you on the flop that you thought you were behind but that you had to take the chance to catch up - which shows how poor of a spot you put yourself in with the small re-raise preflop.As played to the flop, I'm torn, but it might be because you included results. (For future hands, don't do that.) I find it very unlikely that a worse hand will call, although maybe something like AJ with the Ace of clubs would - but you're only very slightly ahead of that hand. I do think you could get a Queen with no club to fold, so a shove might be okay as a semibluff of sorts, but I think that's pretty thin. I think I just check the flop behind and fold the turn unimproved, since you still have a decent stack left.

[raiderrr79 0]

I don't know of a book specifically to help you with this, but posting hands like the one you mentioned will help. My analysis of that hand:You have a very awkward stack size. You have about 28 big blinds but antes are in play, so it really plays like you have 20 big blinds or so. If you do reraise (which you should) then I think a shove is best. Otherwise, your stack size is just too awkward after the flop, as you discovered. You yourself said that after he c/raised you on the flop that you thought you were behind but that you had to take the chance to catch up - which shows how poor of a spot you put yourself in with the small re-raise preflop.As played to the flop, I'm torn, but it might be because you included results. (For future hands, don't do that.) I find it very unlikely that a worse hand will call, although maybe something like AJ with the Ace of clubs would - but you're only very slightly ahead of that hand. I do think you could get a Queen with no club to fold, so a shove might be okay as a semibluff of sorts, but I think that's pretty thin. I think I just check the flop behind and fold the turn unimproved, since you still have a decent stack left.

thanks so much for the reply. Wish I took that hand down I could have really done some damage then. I will continue to post hands that some up and wont post the results next time. thanks again.

[delved 0]

I can personally recommend the HOH (Harrington on Hold'em) collection of three books. If you want help in your late game play then Volume II: The Endgame is best.As the hand, it's been explained well. You have to shove that flop if at all, but for me it's a check/fold.. you're basically screwed and just let yourself hit the flush/jack or fold it off and salvage what you have left.

[cdipierr 0]

Shove the JJ hand preflop, but he's not laying down AK there anyway, so you're still going out. The play is more "right", but realize you're not going to cash/win every tournament you play.

[cashman 0]

Hey everyone, this is my first post on the website. This past weekend i played in my first live tournament at event#5 a the wsop circuit in atlantic city. The field was 451 and I placed 90th, money was 45 and better. I think i played really good poker most of the way, but i feel like my middle to late stage game has weakness in it. In the beginning I played cautious poker, managing pot size and eating up chips from players I felt were weak. I made good calls on bluffs and maximied payouts whereever I could. I had 53,000 in chips within the first 3 hours of play while the chip average was still 7,500. I ran into a couple coolers and was still around 40k at the dinner break when the chip average was around 13k. Once blinds were at 400/800 with 75 ante I felt like I started to leak chips and had a pocket pair get beat by a four flush on the board.I ended up getting eliminated on the following hand: I had pocket jacks in the cutoff with 22k in chips. the player two seats to the right of me raises to 2600 and I reraise to 7000(up until that point on the table most reraises on a raise have not been called). He calls and the flop comes KQ7 all clubs. I hold the jack of club and I put him on AK or AQ based on his previous play. he checks and I bet 5000, he quickly reraises all in. I didnt think he had a club and I figured considering the minimal amount of chips left(10k) I would call and hope for a J or club. I didnt hit and went out in 90th. I think the right move I should have done would have been to push instead of betting the 5k to try to get him off the hand.If anyone has any advise on how I should have played this better please help me learn. Also in general as I mentioned earlier I began leaking chips and quickly declined from a chip leader to an average stack once blinds got heavy. If anyone knows of a good book or site to learn better strategy for middle and late stage MTT live tournaments please let me know...I think if I work on that part of my game I can really made some money after some good reading and learning.THanks.

I think Negrano's power hold'em book is perfect for this. Most players, including myself tighten up once the blinds get big. It's easy to play loosey goosey in the early stages of a deepstack tournament. However, if you can continue to apply pressure without risking large portions of your stack on any given hand you will be surprised how many pots you can take down, especially if you're the table captain. Whenever I get off to a good start in a multi I simply force myself to keep playing a somewhat aggressive approach. I watch the guys that play this way online and it is amazing how often they can just continue to pound on players without a fight. You see it all the time, the big stack is raising 2x to 2.5x the bb every other hand and only one in five or six times does he get reraised. I don't care how good or confident you are, it is hard to call off 25% of your stack w/a hand like K9os even if you are almost certain that the big stack is stealing.

[Init2WINitHI 0]

I think the WPT book by Erick Lindgren called Making the Final Table was a good read for tournament strategy.