Winning Depends on Cards

[Manomanman]

Do you believe that there is/are certain situations where the optimal strategy is to sit there and wait for cards to come?

I play in a live action low buyin NL tourney, and the only conclusion I can come to about optimal strategy is to play top 5% of hands and play them rough preflop, then ONLY continue betting if it ridiculously clear you're ahead. PLUS go fishing a lot with connectors (viz. nobody raises preflop correctly) and jam when the flop/turn/river connects.

Rationale: 1)The ultimate fish (casino gamblers/slot players) pay absolutely no attention to your table image. You can come in 1 in 20 hands with a massive raise, and they'll still give you action when they're holding J 10 against you AK.

2) They think that every bet is a bluff. For example, flop comes 7 4 7 in an unraised pot, I'm UTG and I check holding QJ, button raises the minimum, I reraise 7 times the minimum (I smell weakness + my first raise of the tournament), and he calls with a 4 in hand.

3) They will chase any draw for any price, even all-in. (It's easy to get action on a pat hand.)

These casino fish are distinct from online fish.
a) Only certain players even know how to bluff. They are easy to spot because they bluff WAY too often, ie they raise 3xBB in just about every pot and then go nuclear at every flop. They pot commit themselves every pot they play, regardless of who else is in the hand.
b) Nobody else ever raises correctly. AA limps preflop about half the time, and I've seen AQs go flop and turn nuclear in an unraised 5 handed flop of 3 7 9!!! I've also seen people go all-in early in a hand thinking a gutshot is good. People just mostly call but never raise.
c) Online fish are the inverse of this - they don't bet their draws, but go nuclear into smallish river pots thinking they will get callers. At B&M, river pots are never small because there always seems to be nuclear betting/fish calling on the flop and turn.

In sum, live action players CALL a lot. Therefore, because their favorite move is to call, my favorite move is to never bluff, and always wait for a strong hand to bet.

Problem: You are at the mercy of luck; cold cards mean no ITM.

[Les_Worm]

I play in a live action low buyin NL tourney

What you are saying may be true for low limits as playing premuim hands is good enough to come out ahead in low limits. However as you go up and face better players this strategy won't make you much money. You'll be pegged for a rock and won't get any action.

[EddieBoy]

Manomanman----where r u playing? U going to Pechanga? Elsinore?

[Manomanman]

I've been playing mostly Pechanga, Saturday morning tourney. You'll see me there. Just look for the guy who makes it to about 25th place and then gets this disgusted look on his face (after a bad beat) and walks out really fast. I play Elsinore every once in awhile, but I prefer a no rebuy structure because it requires a more "tournament-oriented" strategy (rebuy tourneys play like cash games; if you have AK early on and get raised all in, you go for it because you probably are getting good odds on your money).

I've never really played against a field of skilled opponents, just the occassional decent player. I completely understand that big money poker is different.

What I'm getting at is, "Is the camping out strategy REALLY optimal, or is this just an illusion?" I've only made it ITM once at Pechanga, and that was when I was hammering on the blinds and not catching cards. In hindsight, this was luck + skill. Skill = I knew when my opponents wouldn't call my all in and give me their blind. Luck = I was lucky to "catch" some weaker opponents at my tables (old ladies, etc.).

Every other time I've played, I've been bad beat out before ITM, mostly by a "gambler" who called my all in with a marginal hand (25% or less) and came out on top.

I'm going kamikaze this Saturday and we'll see how it works. I'm thinking this strategy might have a higher success rate. 1) I will most likely build a decent stack from smaller pots when the blinds are still small, hopefully doubling up in 1st 15 minutes. This will prevent me from getting bad beat out if I need to gamble. 2) This will give me an aggressive image. "Gamblers" who love to "keep you honest" are more likely to notice your aggression than your tightness, because they love to call you down if there's even a 10% chance you're bluffing. 3) Most players are camping for TPTK, some even 2 pair. There seems to be a lot of pots ripe for the taking.

a)The gamblers are so flaky that one hand they'll fold 2 pair and the next they'll call the whole way with bottom pair. It's a mine field and it's difficult to tell where you are in a hand, especially since they never raise preflop.

I. Alternative Strategies.

1. The Daniel Negreanu Strat: Play every hand from middle position and past (esp. if the blinds are weak). Steal every pot that isn't raised in front of you, and steal half of the ones that are ("run the table").

2. TAgg. The only revision is, keep the bets smaller, because you don't want to go broke on a single hand against a lucky shot. "Gamblers" can't and don't distinguish between a raise of 10x and a raise of 2x.

3. Ultimate Fisherman. Because they hardly ever raise preflop, play every starting hand weak-tight from UTG +1 and past. Limp in with your top 50% of hands (we're talking Q 2s) from these positions (very, very loose). Hope to double up with an unlikely and lucky flop.

4. Current Strategy. Weak-Tight. Don't bet unless you have at least a 75% chance to take down the pot. Preflop, you're raising smallish with AK, etc and limping in from late position a lot. Always slow down on the turn if it's scary. Almost never bet the river without the nuts. The one time you do have 2nd nuts/nuts, go nuclear and enjoy your profits.

[Manomanman]

I think I'm going to solve my problem when I say this: the blinds double every 15 minutes. 25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 200/400, 400/800 etc. etc. and you start with 2500.

You cannot sit around and wait for cards. To get the most consistent success in a tournament that lasts no more than 3 hours at the most, you've got to make more than a couple of moves, and you've got to be in there making it or breaking it. Fishing won't work, and camping won't work unless your table is extremely passive/aggressive.

[calljunkie]

The difference in the fishness of B&M fish and online fish is accurate if you consider that when you play Holdem 5/10$ (which is mid limit online) or 10/20$ which is getting high limit online, you will come across a lot of weak players that act like the online fish you described.

However in live games low limit is considered to be anything below and including 30/60$. You only begin to call it mid-limit if you play 80/160$ and high limit at 150/300.

So there it is, if you played an 80/160 you'd find better but still week players that ressemble online's 10/20 games. if you're playing 10/20 live games it's like playing .20/.50 cent limit.

I realized this a while ago but it was confirmed when I read Phil Gordon's new poker book.

[calljunkie]

Bottom line, as long as you play low limits, the right strategy is to almost always play em when you've got them. Once you reach highers limits though, you won't win unless you mix up your game.

I usually play 100 to 200$ NL games in Party and if you play like a rock in these games you will be run over like pavement. However, the times I have played more than one table at a time, I do it in low limit like 25$ NL buy in where you can play 15% the time and still have many callers.

[ginko]

I think you shouldn't be playing so passive with your big cards in these crazy tournies. If your UTG or 1st one in, limp with AA,KK,AK and wait for the raise then reraise massive(after the flop AA and KK lose as often as win). If limpers are already in, play super agressive.


If people are going crazy on the flops then your getting very good implied odds, which makes almost any 2 cards worth playing. Set traps for the weaker opponents and play agressively.


Good players look for plays that work on certain types of people. Like someone will always fold to a check raise, they will always call an overbet thinking your bluffing(or fold thinking you have a monster), fold more often on the river, fold more often to a scary board, etc. Those are weakness's of your opponents and you want to exploit that. So pay attention to what makes people fold(if they do).


There is nothing wrong with folding for the 1st half hour if your not getting cards, but i personally like to see alot of flops with any hand that has a good chance of hitting. Semi-loose/smart play has the advantage of keeping your opponents off guard.

Poker is a people game before anything else, 2nd it is a card game. That is why I hate when people say "don't bluff". I'd rather say, "don't bluff for all your chips".

[Manomanman]

Thanks for the advice, I found both of your perspectives very helpful.

I ended up getting short stacked in the 100/200 round when my AA with a 600 chip raise got cracked by K9o from the BB, and then I got blinded away when the blinds went up.

The only way to characterize the way people play is "erratic." One opponent flopped a set of 3's from the SB in an unraised pot and checked the flop to me. I was in the BB, so of course I checked. The turn gave me the low end straight; the board is showing 4 to a straight and 3 suited cards on the board. He opened with a 2x BB bet, I raised, and he went all in for about half the pot more (I was basically pot committed and should have called). I folded, and he showed down his set, commenting, "I really just wanted to go home." INSANE! The logic behind my fold: he KNOWS I'm pot committed, he KNOWS I'm going to call, so this has to be a flush trap. The logic behind his action: "A set of 3's on this board is still good. I might make a full house...and I'd rather go home and jerk off than keep playing here." Basically, these people don't care about winning at poker. They're just "gambling." The problem is that, just given the odds of winning a showdown, holdem is too forgiving to those willing to gamble.

I also had people defending their BB with A6, desperately hanging on to their 3 outer despite having to call pot sized bets until the turn where they hit their ace.

My conclusion is that you have to get lucky to win in such a caustic tournament structure...and by that I mean, only take 1 bad beat per 3 hours.