Online Tournaments - Basic strategy for early play

[GaF]

THought this was a very interesting article published by Ariston at Betfair (here - http://www3.betfairpoker.com/newsandviews/article/itemId/i65770969/index.html ) A very interesting choice of starting hands!!!

Online tournaments - Basic strategy for early play I’ve been getting creamed on the cash games lately so I decided to go back to playing more tournaments for a while. I forgot how poor the standard of poker often is in the early stages of tournaments so I decided to log peoples exit hands and the hands that were winning and found out something that I am sure won’t surprise many of you. Early on in online tournaments there are so many players that just will not fold a hand no matter what. To try and play any sophisticated strategy will just go over all these players’ heads, so I have found the best way to play is as basic a game as possible until the numpty factor has been reduced (i.e. most of them have committed poker suicide and knocked themselves out). The way I have decided to do this is to really tighten up my starting hand requirements for the first few levels of a tourney. Now if you take time to read many poker books (Lederer, Helmuth, Brunson etc) most of them will have their hand rankings and which hands they will enter pots with - in my opinion these charts are worthless as they are meant for offline players and live play. Online play is not their area of expertise and hand rankings online with the "donkey factor" are completely different to offline play. Negreanu advocates small ball poker where he plays almost every pot with almost any two cards. Again if you try this in online tournaments early on you will just get donked as your folding equity is very low (most of these players can’t lay down an under pair let alone top pair) so you wont get many moves through. Now for anyone thinking that I’m insulting my readers, obviously it’s unlikely that anyone who takes time to read up on poker strategy is one of the players that I’m referring to. To give you an idea of the sort of stupidity I’m talking about in the last week I have seen over 20 people getting knocked out in level 1 calling an all in with KJ - something I am sure none of you would do. To expand on this I have come up with my own online ranking chart of the 20 hands I will play and when they will be played. I am sure many of you won’t agree entirely with my hand rankings so make your own hand rankings chart then stick to it for the first few levels in any online MTT you play. 1. AA 2. KK 3. QQ 4. AK suited 5. AK off 6. JJ 7 TT 8 TJ suited 9. 45 suited 10= 46/57 suited 12. AQ suited 13. AQ off 14. 99 15. 88 16. 77 17 any pair 6s or under 18. AJ 19. KQ (suited or off) 20. Ax suited (lower than AJ) This chart will differ from others you may have seen but I shall tell you how and why I rank the hands this way and how and when I shall play them. Anybody who thinks it will be easy to beat me now because of this information should think twice because almost any flop possible fits one of my hands. Hands one to five, I will be raising or re-raising with these hands at any stage during the early levels of the tournament and will be willing to get all the money in pre-flop. Anyone needing an explanation of why probably should consider another game away from poker. I will continuation bet all of the hands if up against a single or two opponents. I will probably be willing to go broke with AA KK on the flop if it isn't too scary (i.e. flop of 4c 5c 6c doesn’t look to appealing to red aces although I can't promise I would fold to most players online). These hands don’t come up too often and later in the tournament I may be risking getting outdrawn by playing several of the hands more slowly allowing people to try and push me off the hands. If I do get the good fortune to have one of these hands when somebody has already raised I shall be re-raising big against anyone I consider a numpty to allow them to go all-in. On several occasions this week I have overbet the pot huge with KK or AA to have my opponent going all-in with a small pair saying "I had you on AK" (the lazy way to play poker is anybody who re-raises must have AK). Make these hands pay over the first couple of hours and you will be in good position to make the final. If I’m on a particularly numpty-rich table I may limp in early position with all these hands and look for the big re-raise and to catch the fish before he gives his chips to someone else. Hands 6-10, I will be raising if first in the pot with all of these hands and will be at least calling a re-raise in the early stages of the competitions. The reasons I have these particular suited connector/one gap hands so high is because these are the hands that build your stack quickest. If re-raised I am not looking to go broke. If I flop one pair I am looking to flop either a made hand or a huge draw with them. I shall also continuation bet all of the hands on any flop if I am up against one or sometimes two opponents. The reason those particular suited connectors are the best to get paid is because if you flop a straight and it’s not the nut straight it is still probably good, if you raise with 78 and the flop comes 9TJ there is the possibility one of the other players has KQ (obviously if you flop 678 with 45 it is possible someone has 9T but it is less likely a calling hand to a raise than KQ). The added benefit of 45 or TJ is if you flop the nut straight (flop A23 or AKQ) you are more likely to get action as most of the people calling your raises have the type of hands that hit the flop. The best way to get paid early on is playing hands that if you hit so do they (as most of them can't pass top pair you are looking to punish them). Hands 12-15 I will raise if first into pot and re-raise with most depending on the opponent. I will not be going broke with one pair flops and am looking to flop a set or huge draw. Obviously certain flops will favour my hands more than others but I will be trying to keep the pots to a manageable level and maybe even go in passively with them by check calling. These are the hands that people go broke with so you must play them more cautiously as it is a sin to go bust with 77 on a low board when in your heart you know the guy probably has a bigger pair. The other big hand people like to go broke with falls into this category and is my least favourite hand in holdem, the dreaded AQ. When I play AQ nowadays I am not looking to flop the queen or the ace I want both or the straight. AQ is the hand that takes more people out of the latter stages of big live MTTs than any other (if you don’t believe me simply look at the exit hands from the last 20 major live updates on Cardplayer and you will see a pattern) so you can just imagine how pretty it looks to most internet players. AQ is a trick and you should be very very careful with it. Hands 16-20 I will play more passively and look to catch something, sometimes I would raise pre-flop with them (round the back) but most times I would limp and fold to any pre-flop aggression. By far the most common hand people go broke early on with is Ax where they have flopped an ace (later on it changes to AQ). The reason you shouldn't play Ax is because unless you hit your 2 pair you never know quite where you are on the flop (especially an ace high flop). The amount of times the flop comes Txx where someone has called a raise with AT is shocking - top pair top kicker can be beaten on the flop contrary to popular belief. For the first two hours a high percentage of the field cannot fold top pair so when you flop something big and have your flop bet called make sure you make them pay the maximum by incremental betting (i.e. bet flop 200, opponent calls turn bet 400, opponent calls then river 800). A nice little trick is to bet a high proportion of your opponents stack on the river. If he has 1200 left and the pot is 2k when you bet 900 he will normally stick the other 300 in anyway if he was going to call the 900 (if you bet the 1200 they may smell the coffee and realise they are behind). It’s a very strange concept but most people are happy to go broke raising but not as happy to go broke calling. This strategy is directly aimed at early tournament play (when you have over 30 bbs) and obviously later on when there is a higher proportion of decent players left. At this stage you will need to play differently but if you can get through the first couple of hours of a comp having built a stack and not got knocked out, then half the job is done. I have used this strategy for the last week and got through the first 6 or 7 levels over in over 80% of the competitions I have played with a good chip position. It may not be the most interesting way to play but it certainly works and anyone who doubts it just give it a try and see how people early on just gift you their chips. In the early stages of competitions the key is discipline if you want to make the business end of tournaments on a regular basis. Ariston

[robilaruk]

Re: Online Tournaments - Basic strategy for early play excellent thanks for the cross post Damo