Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:58 am GMT by golfey
Hi again....
i have only recently started playing tournaments for about 6 months now...and im having trouble when to switch gears....ie go from tight to play loose when the tournament gets less and less
whats the right time to start playing more agressive.......
Thanks
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Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:02 am GMT by Muck
The 2 main factors that effect what gear I’m in for aggression are:
- Number of people at my table (this is more critical for SnGs)
- My stack in relation to the blinds.
Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:14 am GMT by golfey
can you elaborate further please
it was in a tourney of about 2000 people
thanks
Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:33 am GMT by UrAteUp
MTT is tough to decide when to really shift gears. Again tight/aggressive is the best way to go early on. When you see a chance to strike big then do so and push...push...push.
Later if you have a big chip stack then you can set back a little and play only your premium hands and good draw hands. These are key times to set good traps as well.
As the numbers dwindle later in the tournament then you can open up and start playing looser as you will see most players doing.
There really is no right time or wrong time to shift gears. It is all in how the cards are coming to you and how your play is compared to others. As Muck stated your chip stack and those around you are a big key to determine when to start shifting gears.
Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:01 am GMT by Muck
| golfey wrote: | | can you elaborate further please |
The value of hands in relation to the number of players is an intuitive thing. I don’t know if there’s a chart somewhere on-line that shows each hand and it’s likelihood of holding up against x number of random hands.
E.g. K3s vs 3 players = 22% to win. Kind of thing.
I just picked it from playing and seeing what generally holds up against x number of players.
Stack to blinds ratio is more mathematic. Read this and if you have the cash I’d advise you buy the book.
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Tournament No-Limit Hold'em: Harrington's Zone System
Introduction
The Zone System was first introduced by Dan Harrington in his highly acclaimed book "Harrington on Hold'em, Volume II: The Endgame." The Zone System divides a poker tournament into five different zones based on a player's stack size as compared to the blinds and antes. Each zone will affect your play and correct strategy will vary dramatically as a result. The ratio of your stack compared to the blinds and antes is referred to as your "M." For example: You have $750 in chips and the blinds are $25/$50 with no antes. This means that you have 10 times more than the starting pot and your M is 10.
The Green Zone: M is 20 or more
In the Green Zone all weapons are at your disposal and you can play in all different kinds of playing styles. This is the place to be but you must be careful to balance your play in a way that allows you to continue building your stack while simultaneously protecting it. You can afford to play in both a super conservative style as well as in a super aggressive style.
The Yellow Zone: M is 10-20
You can no longer play conservative (tight) poker. The blinds and antes are starting to hurt your stack and you must loosen up your play and take more risks. Certain types of hands become less playable, such as small pairs and small suited connectors. This is because these hands now lack the implied odds necessary to turn a profit: The stacks have to be big in order to achieve this.
The Orange Zone: M is 6-10
You have now lost the ability to make more advanced moves. For example, you can't come over the top against a raise and a re-raise because, even if you make an all-in raise, your bet will not be big enough to discourage a call from even the weakest of hands. Your main concern is to be first in whenever you decide to play (unless you have a monster hand like AA-QQ and AK). You must try to preserve your chips for an all-in move, such as an all-in re-raise when you are in the big blind and suspect a steal. This means that you should not make marginal calls in the big blind or small blind or limp in with drawing hands the way you could when you were in the Green or Yellow zone.
The Red Zone: M is 1-5
Your only move is basically to move all-in. Even if you make the minimum raise you are pot committed and can't get away from the hand. If your M is 3 or less then you will most likely be called by any two cards when you make your all-in raise. Small pairs and small suited connectors are again playable but only as a means to making an all-in move. You need to steal as many blinds and antes as possible and hope to get lucky if you are called (most likely you will be the underdog) or pick up a monster hand and hopefully get called. If you are first in and sitting in a late position you can move all-in with plenty of hands; AA-22, any two cards ten or bigger, A-x, K-x, Q-x, any suited connector, and any connector if your M is 3 or less (such as 9-8 off-suit and the like).
The Dead Zone: M is less than 1
As implied by the heading, you are as good as out of the tournament and every move you make will be instantly called. You need a lot of luck to get back into the tournament. The most important thing to consider is your play before you enter the Dead Zone. If you have blinded yourself down to this position then you have made a mistake. You should only end up in the Dead Zone by losing a big pot when your stack was bigger than it is now and your opponent had slightly less chips than you had. You should make your move when you are first in and before the big blind arrives (this means moving in with any two cards when a first in opportunity arises). This way you at least have some chance of getting the pot heads-up against a random hand.
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Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:21 am GMT by snoogins47
The simplest way to look at it is that there are two things that should cause you to open up your game(and by "open up", I tend to mean steal more... this is in addition to the fact that hands become more and more powerful as the # of players decreases, which has been mentioned) Decreased risk, or increased reward (or of course in a perfect world, plenty of both.)
This can manifest itself in different ways in a tournament setting, but it's easy to extrapolate many of them by first just looking at an extreme example.
Anybody remember PokerSuperstars II? (Names and details are fudged from memory, I might get some of them confused) Scotty Nguyen, in his final elimination match, needs a mere ONE point to be guaranteed to make it into the next round. Sixth place pays 0 points. Fifth gives him the point. Nguyen open raises with... who knows, I think it was AJ or so. Folds to Todd Brunson, who shoves all his chips in and says "You can't call." He was right.
So there's the extreme example of a decreased risk. This is obviously analogous to having somebody covered while they're on the bubble, or things like that.
Another "lower risk" factor is The # of players left to act (Intuitive, but not always specifically mentioned. Each player that is still involved in the pot is one more player that can look down at a real hand and call.
Increased rewards, obviously, is more money in the pot, maybe intensely top-heavy payouts, things like that.
Stack size is a tricky one, because it could really fit into both categories. When you get shorter and shorter, you need to be shoving like, a whole helluva lot, in general. You could say the "risk" is lower, because you didn't have many chips anyway, or that the "reward" is higher, since your investment, relative to the money you could win, is ginormous.
I could ramble about this for quite some time, but I'm going to spare you all the bandwidth... for the time being
Posted Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:28 am GMT by golfey
thanks folks
i ordered the harrington book 2 days ago it will be here by saturday fingers crossed :D
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