MTT strats and thoughts

[mortaleclipse]

After busting in the largest live MTT I have ever played I have done some serious thinking about what I could have done diffrently. Nearing the money and not even realising it I made a very large mistake that cost me my tournament life. Lets take a look at a few things that I would consider a must in order to make it deep in large field MTT's. The most obvious IMO is being aggreser rather then a station. Missing key points of any spot were you gain chips is a huge leak that can cost you deep runs.

Using programs like poker tracker or poker manager I believe can really help make better educated guesses on what type of hand villain can call or raise you with. Things you got pick up on are, does he float with ATC, does he check fold to any CB? After being at a table for more then 20 minutes I think can get a good feal of who these players are. Let me give one quick example of a hand I played verse a limp caller of any bet and floated any type of flop.

It folds to us in the blinds and this particular player was directly to my right. Blinds were 200/400 and he had a stack of 16k and I was sitting at 12k so we were some what deep for a online tourney. Villain completes and im holding KJ, now villain is most certainly not holding anything with ny strength cause he would of certainly would of raised it so I pop it to 1000 more on top of the blinds confident im holding the best of it. Flop brings 489 which very well could of hit villain but more then likely im still ahead. He checks, now I got some options. Do I bet with probably the best hand, well we know this guy will more then likely float us with ATC and make our life miserable when the turn comes not sure if we should bet again. I figured if the turn brought some card that look harmless it would be much better to bet cause it will be much harder for him to call that bet rather bet flop and be unsure of what to do on turn and river. So I check and turn brings another 4. He checks again and im 100% sure im good so I bet 1450 into the pot and he insta folds.

Now there is something I wanna point out is when someone has position in hand they can make your life just miserable like we all know. However there is times when reversing this is optimal in smelling a bluff. This is something I have done very very rarely but I think is important in a overall aspect of getting chips.

Its fairly early in a 27.50$ tourney on stars and blinds are 50/100 and we have about 4200. I raise UTG+2 to 300 with K J and MP calls who has about 3600 and button calls with about 3900. What I know is MP hasnt really been involved assuming he just hasnt had much but I did see the guy on the button ealier make some trickey moves that got him some pots such as check raise on rivers and such. Well the flop comes 2 9 a and I lead out for about 650 which im not saying is the best move but for whatever reason at the time this is what I decided to do. MP calls and the guy on the button tanks it for a few.

Ok while he was tanking this is were I was starting to develope a plan for what could happen if he raises. Now if he just calls im done with the hand, if he raises alot im almost certain he is on a flush draw. Why do I think this? Well lets think about it, we know villain is capable of making moves and he is really trying to rep 222 or 999 which yes is in his range but very small portion, if the raise is so large why would he want us off our hands so easly. A more novice player I think I probably just give this up but ith his style im 90% sure it a flush draw if its a big raise. Now what could MP call with? My best guess he had A10 or AJ and is not sure how to play it and just decided to call.

So what does button do he raises to 2100 and its on me, at this point im fairly ceratin im ahead of button with my KJ, if he had actually had AK he would of poped me preflop or just call on the flop bet with AQ rather go nuts with it. So with all this info im fairly certain im ahead of his range, I decided to push thinking the guy with best hand could no way take this heat and fold his marginal ace.

As I suspected he folds and buttons thinks for a few and calls with his last 1200 or whatever it was. He was holding j10 for a flush draw and whiffed. Im using this as example to understand what your oppenent is trying to do.

What the point of this is that you need a game plan for every diffrent type of villain when going with the hand. Diffrent people bring diffrent bets that need to be planed out. I still have alot to learn but with the success I do have and the thousands of tournaments I have played these are things I have learned that could help bring you that extra step in a MTT.

[jimmer]

Nice post.

Do you feel this is something you haven't been concentrating on enough then?