Edited by GoodKarmaKid: New member post with some good discussion of "Multi Table Tournament Play" so decided to open up a new forum.

Hello all, new player and new here

Played in my first tourney last night, the $30+3 WSOP on Stars. Have only played SnG before. Very interesting experience.

It was T2,000 buy in, rebuy for 2,000 and a 4,000 add on, and I bought all 8,000 chips.

Had a great start, played tight and aggressive and pretty quickly was in the top 5, thanks to some suicidal players and a bit of luck, all the way through the second and third hours - by end of hour 3 had about 100,000 and was 3rd of about 70 remaining.

Then I got a bit overconfident, and a couple of bad calls saw me down to 60,000, 7th of 14 remaining. On one of the last two tables was sandwiched betwen the 2 chip leaders, about 110,000 each. Was thinking "I'm not gonna last much longer" when I played so badly that I sealed my own fate. Everything folded to me in the SB, had pocket K's and instead of going all in, just bet 10,000. BB called. Flop was Jxx, and I don't know why but I just checked. BB went all in and I KNEW he had pocket J's. But my third stupid mistake and I called and he did.

Not sure I would have lasted much longer anyway, but it's that mistake of calling when you know you're beaten just to confirm you were right!

Ah well, 14th out of 173 for my first tourney wasn't too bad, and I had a blast and learnt a LOT

Yeah not too shabby at all! Also welcome to the site!

Hi Gazzarooni

Welcome to Poker Strategy Forums. You did really well for your first tournament. It's easy to get carried away when you are the chipleader because you usually have a dominating image and are playing power poker, raising with some marginal hands, etc. The key is knowing when to change gears and who to change gears against After a while people just get fed up with the power poker and throw out the stop sign and make a stand, so you will need to have a hand to show them.

Regarding your Kings against jacks hand, I don't think the end result would have been any different. If you raise preflop the BB with Jacks is most certainly going to call, and possible reraise anyhow getting all the chips in preflop. Even if he just flat called your raise, it is going to be near impossible for you to fold a j x x flop.

I like to call this being "a victim of circumstance". Almost nothing you could do to avoid the outcome.

One of the partners on this site has a great Sit N Go site callled SitandGoPlanet.com. I'd highly recommend checking it out, there are a lot of poker strategy articles that are very specific to sit and go tournaments. Quite often the best play in tournaments is significantly different than what the correct play in a cash game would be.

Once again, welcome to PSF

Jason

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I'm Not Lucky, I Have Good Karma !

Thanks for the replies :)

I take all your points Jason, and remember telling myself to change gear. Easier said than done, I found!

The only thing about that hand is that I knew I should fold, I read his hand, said out loud "he's got jacks" and ignored the result - I'd have been in bad shape anyway with 50,000 remaining, but might have lasted a bit longer.

Will check out SnGPlanet.

Best, Gazza

Just curious how you got such a good read on the fact he had pocket jacks when he just flat called out of the big blind. Did this player play especially weak/tight? or rarely bluff? or never bet top pair?


Honestly, I've played 100's of thousands of hands and I don't think I would put the player on pocket jacks in that spot for the following reason:

• Why no raise preflop? Jacks should basically always be raising preflop in this spot to avoid difficult situations that arise when the overcards hit. Slow playing Jacks out of the blind against only the small blind is an especially bad play in my opinion.

Jason

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I'm Not Lucky, I Have Good Karma !

I think it was the way he so quickly raised all in after my small bet on the flop. I had only been moved to this table a hand or two before so had no idea how he played. Probably, in retrospect, what I was saying to myself was a danger signal, rather than the certainty I conveyed in my earlier post. Of course it happens so fast that it gets concertinaed (sp?) in the memory, but the overriding recollection is that I knew full well I should have folded and had a chance of at least finishing a bit higher, but didn't. The point of raising it was to link to some good points made on the "biggest mistakes" thread elsewhere on this forum on this self destructive tendency :)

All the best, Gazza

Hey Gazz,
Welcome to this forum. I think you'll enjoy it here...I know I have...some forums can make you feel really stupid when you post some crazy thing you did or pose a question you need answered, but the members here have always been "kind to the fish".

I have begun to listen to that "little voice" in my head....Lord knows I'd have a much healthier bankroll if I could only have learned to trust my gut right out the gate. It's amazing, in retrospect, how often I am actually right on those occasions that the cards are flipped. Maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this NLHE game? I know I've not had to replenish my bankroll but once since the beginning of the year, whereas last year I added money on a monthly (or sometimes twice a month) basis. Maybe I'm coming to the break in the learning curve...and there IS a learning curve! The stupid mistakes still rear their ugly heads more often than I'd like...maybe someday soon I wil figure it out...

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ertrauma


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As my father always said, "Son, choose your sword wisely for some day you may find you must fall on it".

Thanks ertrauma

Have had a similar bankroll experience. Am working on a blend of learning from reading the books and actual play. I lose less often now and more encouragingly when I do I can start to understand why.

I don't know, man. I think the money in this hand is going in the middle one way or the other. He's probably not folding those jacks to a raise, and you're crazy to not bet or check raise with KK on a J high non-coordinated board. Sometimes you run into spots where you are going to lose a lot of money and that's that.

Odd question top how many got into the next step in this situation?

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Kickboyswoop