My first No-Limit Tourney experience.

This was a $1 No Limit Tourney with unlimitted rebuys for the first hour and one add-on at the end of the first hour. 220 people entered, 220,000 chips to start. There were 573 rebuys and add-ons by the end of the first hour bringing it up to 795,000 chips.

I just played it as if I would a cash game for the most part, avoiding playing stupid hands even when the blinds were extremely small. I found myself not once ever rebuying or doing an addon through the entire game.

Fast forward to about 30 people remaining. I am at a table sitting left of the chip leader and I am about 10th in chips, doing okay. He is stealing blinds often and no one is stopping him. It comes time when I am big blind and he is small blind. Everyone folds to him, he raises to 2x the BB. I come back over with 6x the BB in an attempt to make a stand with some poor hand. He pushes all in and I back down. I see him do this again to someone about 15 hands later. I take note how aggressive he is, especially with his stack.

Tables change and from position 20 to 10 I find myself being the chip leader. All is going well, everything is working perfectly. When I play a hand, it is a good hand; when it misses I am in position to bluff it off and play it aggressively to take the pot regardless.

Final table comes, same guy from before is two to my left. Him and I are nearly tied for chips at this point and everyone else is trailing far behind with less than half what we have. A round of blinds come by and he blind steals (of course!) and has a minor lead over me now.

Next round of blinds come, I'm sitting on the big blind with pocket kings. This is exactly what I needed to take him down. One smallish stack calls and he's sitting on the button.

What does he do? He raises, of course. 2x the BB.
Small blind folds, I re-raise to 4x the BB.
The small stack folds, he calls.

Flop comes
I bet about half the pot, he raises back all-in. Exactly what I wanted, I am so happy. I've played him so well.

Turn comes

River comes

I feel so good.

Except he hit his flush .
All of my chips, gone!

Game over, I walk out in 10th place with 6 bucks instead of having 5x the stack of 2nd place chip stack and well more than that over the majority and likely taking the tourney and winning 160.

I say good game and wish everyone luck with my six god damned dollars.

Wow, that is one top heavy payout. 220 people with unlimited rebuys for the first hour, and 10th place only gets 6x the buy in?! Wow.
Better luck next time, you made the right play.

There must be something in the water...

I can't tell you the number of times in the last week where I've pushed a fish all in(who had 4 to a flush) and the fish called and caught the flush. There must be some new movement among fish to just gamble on every flush draw...

You gotta be real pleased with your performance in your first MTT. Even if the payout was a measly $6 you did damn good to make it as far as you did. Keep pluggin away at it and you will get the big payout.

Yeah, You did good. Got your chips in with the best hand. Thats what really counts.

Originally Posted by montimus

There must be something in the water...

I can't tell you the number of times in the last week where I've pushed a fish all in(who had 4 to a flush) and the fish called and caught the flush. There must be some new movement among fish to just gamble on every flush draw...

Opp in this hand is not a fish. It's a decent play -- push back hard against a protective bet when you're on the come, giving yourself the standard win 1/3 of the time when you complete, plus another (approx) 30% chance of opp folding to you. That's probably how he ammassed his chips.

Note: if you had pushed all in against him, and he had called, it would be bad play. But he rightly opted to be the aggressor. You lose by calling against the odds, but you can win by raising against them, oddly enough.

Congrats on the play, though. Stick with it

Originally Posted by Admerylous

Flop comes
I bet about half the pot ...

Re: the above note that you're actually giving him correct odds (3 to 1) to draw to his flush. Better than that if he can get you to call more bets after completing it.

LeFou, I was trying to make it appear that I was stealing the pot but timid and scared (as he likely had me pegged for forcing me to lay down to him earlier).

Do you suggest I push at this point? Or check it? Or...?

Raise the flop pot-sized or bigger. 2 to the flush or strt on the board means you don't have the option to get cute (even with an overpair).

- sed

Got it.

Originally Posted by Admerylous

Do you suggest I push at this point? Or check it? Or...?

Yeah, as above the standard play is just to bet big, so that opp's call on the come is a mistake regardless of how it turns out.

If opp pushes all in over the top of that, you've got to think 2pair or better, and fold. That's why the semi-bluff on the come is such a good play. TPTK and even overpairs will lay down to this on occasion. It doesn't have to work every time 'cause you'll complete pretty often as well.

If it was any other player I would have layed them down to be honest.

I think it is great that you made it to the final table in your first tournament out of a field of 220.

A bunch of small comments:

Originally Posted by Admerylous

I just played it as if I would a cash game for the most part, avoiding playing stupid hands even when the blinds were extremely small.

Sklansky and other authors (Brunson? Harrington? I can't remember) tell us that the smaller the blinds are relative to your stack, the tighter you should play. These small blinds don't make the hands "cheap" ... they just make the pot odds lower for each hand. This is true across different ring games but more apparent in tournaments, where you actually see the blinds change.

Originally Posted by LeFou

Originally Posted by Admerylous

Flop comes
I bet about half the pot ...

Re: the above note that you're actually giving him correct odds (3 to 1) to draw to his flush. Better than that if he can get you to call more bets after completing it.

Since you're talking about strict pot odds (not implied odds), I don't believe this is accurate. Since both players have money remaining, they must pay for the turn card and the river card separately. Your opponent is about a 4-to-1 dog to make his flush on the turn. He is about 3-to-1 if he only has to pay once for both the turn and the river. But that is not the case with calling this half-pot bet.

Originally Posted by Admerylous

If it was any other player I would have layed them down to be honest.

I think an argument could be made for laying this down, even if you knew exactly what both of you had. You are only a 62-38 favorite to his flush draw on the flop. This would be great against a smaller stack that won't eliminate you from the tournament. But I think I would rather have a larger advantage against someone who covers me. If most of the other stacks are much smaller, I'd rather just cruise into second place. Maybe this is weak of me, I don't know.

...

Originally Posted by Zangief

Since you're talking about strict pot odds (not implied odds), I don't believe this is accurate. Since both players have money remaining, they must pay for the turn card and the river card separately.

Since I'm talking about strict pot odds, it is accurate. What you're describing are effective odds. These take into account the possibility that you miss on the turn and have to call another bet (presumably > 1/6 the pot) to see the river.

But just as pot odds don't tell the whole story, neither do effective odds. If opp makes the flush on the turn, and Hero mistakenly bets into himher, then opp will win more than what is presently (3 to 1) in the pot. Those, of course, are the implied odds.

So, in a sense, the weakening from effective odds is offset by the strengthening from implied odds.

The overall point is simply that taking away the "strict" pot odds in a decisive manner is the proper way to protect a made hand.

Originally Posted by LeFou

Since I'm talking about strict pot odds, it is accurate. What you're describing are effective odds. These take into account the possibility that you miss on the turn and have to call another bet (presumably > 1/6 the pot) to see the river.

But just as pot odds don't tell the whole story, neither do effective odds. If opp makes the flush on the turn, and Hero mistakenly bets into himher, then opp will win more than what is presently (3 to 1) in the pot. Those, of course, are the implied odds.

So, in a sense, the weakening from effective odds is offset by the strengthening from implied odds.

The overall point is simply that taking away the "strict" pot odds in a decisive manner is the proper way to protect a made hand.

I thought that pot odds was synonymous with effective odds. I guess you are saying that pot odds lies somewhere in between effective odds and implied odds (at least in this case).

While I can't say that this completely clears things up for me, I appreciate you explaining that there is a difference. I'm going to go take a look at TOP and see if I can clear it up a little bit more.

Of course, I completely agree with the point about protecting a made hand.