Yip there's some good poker players and gett1nlots
Sorry couldn't resist.
Right anyway to answer the question. Have a read of what I said about multi tournies in the other thread also.
It is of course much easier to consistently place in the single table tournaments. I spent quite a long time just playing 10 seater STT and it's no bad thing to do. The more things you master at poker the better.
I'd agree with what Doc has already written. I'll try and explain with a few examples exactly the kinda of thing he is on about and perhaps add a few things of my own.
OK phase 1 as he calls it. As he says you don't need to get involved unless you got the bollox. Say for instance it's the start of a tournie, you start with 1000 chips and the blinds are 10/20. Someone raises to 100 , some person raises to 300 and then someone goes all in. You have AK suited. Do you call ?
Of course not. Why throw your whole stack in on a situation you are likely to be either evens - ie opponents also playing AK, or slight underdog if they are playing pocket pairs. Yes someone could be playing AQ but with blinds at 20 it's not worth the risk. Often in these situations people are unable to fold their hands and often end up in a 3 way or more all in pre-flop. "Pretty" hands like AQ, they raise and then can't throw them away.
With blinds at 10/20 you just pass this kinda thing up.
To take an extreme example - someone goes all in and three people call the all in. You have AA. Do you call ? no. If it were a cash game you would call. But not in a tournament with blinds at that level. There is no need to put all your chips in there. You can wait and put them in when you are much bigger favourite.
Still not convinced ? OK Lets say you have AA...for argument sake we will say the four other people hold KK, QQ, JJ, TT
What's your chances of winning pre flop ? Well it depends on the suits a little etc but it's around 44% ! It's actually more likely that one of the other people will win than you. Not any one of them specifically, but more likely someone will. You are odds on to be knocked out the tournament !
OK if you win it's a nice chip stack yes. Does it gurantee you will in the tournament no ? Far better to wait for a chance when you can get your chips in when you are pretty sure you are a favourite, not the underdog.
Now if it were cash - you could of course call as you'd be getting 4-1 for your money where you have a 44% chance of winning. Clearly long term that will make a profit. It's a huge positive expectation. There's no winning the tournament or anything to consider, it's just about cash. Hence the play there is of course different.
Once you avoid any of this madness you wanna go about building your stack up. As a general rule the larger the blinds become the looser you have to play. You have to do more blind stealing ie raising pre flop and getting everyone to fold without seeinga flop. Try and identify the very tight players - if one of them raises watch out. A good tight player also knows this and can often try and take advantage of his "tight image" and raise with shite and get away with it.
You don't need to go mental, the blinds increase gradually but make sure you try and keep up with them. Remember if you don't have 10 times the big blinds you are short stacked and need to try to double up.
OK as hte money approaches as doc says try and use a large stack to your advantage by picking on people "scared" to get knocked out.
It's important here you understand the value though.
eg
Say the blind levels are 300/600
You are big blind for 600
The short stack raises all in - he has 700 chips.
Everyone folds and it's just you left. You have the cards 47 off suit.
Garbage hand yes but you of course call. It's only costing you 100 chips to call. Forget the blind - that's in the pot, it isn't yours anymore. Look at the pot purely as if you have put no money in it and is it a worthwhile situation to call.
Ok so it costs 100 to call. Now for this 100 you can win the big blinds (600), the small blind(300) and his raise(700). That's 1600 chips for only 100 !!
Amazing odds ! It doesn't matter what cards you have or what cards he has, it's a call. Say the guy has AA the best he could have, you have 47 off - the AA is about 85% favourite to your 15% but you are getting 16-1 pot odds as it's 100 chips to win 1600 so your play actually has a positive expectation.
Do the maths. You make the play 100 times.
You lose 85% of the time. 85 x 100 = 8500 chips.
You win 15% of the time. 15 x 1600 = 24 000 chips.
That is an overall gain of 15500 chips, every time you make that play.
Now if instead you folded 100 times, you would save yourself 100 x 100 = 10000 chips. 15500 -10000 = 5500. You are 5500 chips better off long term by calling the 100 than folding.
This is all assuming the guy has a hand like AA. The same scenario where the person is say playing AK and your expectation is then MUCH bigger.
Obviously in tournament play you don't whip out the calculator and figure this out every time something like it happens. But as long as you understand the principle you can work out when it's worth calling. You of course need to knock these short stacks out. If it's only costing 100 to have a chance of taking someone out....you go for it.
Ok once you is in the bucks, you have to play loose tastic. Anything which even resembles a hand is a raise once the blinds are big.
As already said stack size and luck are a big factor here.
Hands that you might call with say like 78 suited are not as much use anymore. There isn't going to be 6 other callers and you see a flop and decided whether you can make a straight or see if you've flopped a playable hand etc. You're gonna be heads up, or sometimes three way against somone and you look at the hand on it's merit that way.
Take a hand like K8 off. That's a hand when blinds or small or in a cash game I would never call with. But when you're down to the last two or three in a tournie that's a decent hand. When there's only 3 people in there's a decent chance K8 is the best hand out. The fewer people there are, the more the hand values increase.
When you get down to heads up and the blinds are at their maximum, say 500/1000 and the starting stacks were 1000 then it's almost not a bad idea just raising all in no matter what your cards are. If the guy folds then you pick up the blinds, great. If he calls then if you are ahead great, if behind you can still win. Heads up the 50/50 hand is J7 I think. If you have J7 there's a 50% chance your opponent is beating you. If you have better, you are likely to be in front. As already said luck plays a large part here but whatever you do, make sure you are very aggressive.
I've won many tournaments from heads up just through aggression....a person would remember my tight play early on and fold fold fold....finally when they cotton on Im raising with shite and call me, I might actually have a decent hand and beat them. I might actually have a shite hand and beat them anyway. But I've already won enough chips from blinds to justify any % disadvanatage I have against them once called.
It's not nice raising all in with shite but constantly folding aint gonna win you the tournie. Many people can get really moany when they've been folding your raises and then they finally call you with AK thinking they got you sussed. Your J9 has still got over a 1 in 3 chance of beating the AK !!
And when it does, boy do they moan.
STT or MTT
