tournament strategy

one of the important things that helps me succeed in tournys is that i rarely call raises. i like to be the raiser and not the caller. i see people all the time calling with middle or bottom pair early in tournaments trying to catch something to take the lead. i have also seen people call all ins with a flush draw when they had a decent stack size. calling a raise gives you one chance to win, having the best hand. when you make a raise you give yourself two ways to win the pot, making someone fold or have the best hand. another downfall to calling a raise is that you are getting no information off your opponent. for any forum members who read this and think they might be someone who calls raises, try my approach and see if there are any changes in your results. remember when you bleed off x amount of chips then double up later thats 2x not in your stack. it can add up quick.

i agree with what your saying about call raises, but if i have a strong hand i will always call. especially if i am short stacked. and know a good chance to double up. but i'll give your aproach a try and see if it gets me into the money more like you..

This is what I've been waiting for... a tournament strategy tip from arguably one of the (if not the) best MTT player on Donkhard. I suspect you may have some more hidden gems of wisdom, Philly, but this is a good one.

I play a strategy similar to this, although I do tend to call raises fairly liberally as long as I have position on the raiser. But you've got some excellent points. Calling does not often result in reads in online poker. Being the aggressor is the best way to figure out what your opponent is holding. Having multiple way to win is going to be more profitable than relying on only one way to win (having the best hand).

I think I am going to run a little experiment here. I'll play a few tournaments, maybe 10 or 20. I'll do half my way and the other have your way, Philly. This is probably going to be a long process. Recently I have committed myself to a few to many projects, and now my time is stretched so thin it's dipping into my poker time. Still, I think it will be a fun and interesting experiment. I will post the results here as I go and we'll see if this small adjustment to my game can result in an improvement in my finishes.

I'll give it a go right now.

i am most certainly not advising anyone to lay down a strong hand. i just mean the hands that you catch a piece of and there is a raiser. as a short stack i think you must call with a strong hand, i agree with you. my thread was based on early or deepstack play, when you have plenty of big blinds left. for example at the start of a tourny where you have 1500 starting chips and get dealt small pocket pair facing a 100 raise, i fold but feel it is ok to raise with the same hand. it is tough to put a player on a hand online, don't be the one guessing, let them guess was my main point.

So I gave one a try using Philly's tips. I finished 32nd out of 90 players. Would have made it much further, but my pocket queens ran into KK. The flop came rag rag rag, and that was where we got them all in.

Still, barring that unfortunate hand, I felt quite pleased with how the tournament went. Of course, sometimes s*** like that is going to happen. Not a whole lot you can do about it. Fortunately, those things don't happen too often. I do feel some solid finishes coming with this strategy!

Following are the in progress results of my rather unscientific study. For each game I play one way, I will play an identical game the other way. The last tournament, which I played with Philly's adjustment, was a 90 player SNG. I will play another 90 player SNG of the same buy-in level using my own strategy. Doesn't look like I'll have time to play until later tonight or sometime tomorrow. I'll come back with those results when I finish.

Philly's Way:
Average Field Size - 90 players
Average Finishing Place - 32
Average Finishing Rank - Top 35.5%
Average Winnings - $0.00
ITM Finishes - 0
Final Tables - 0
Top 5 Finishes - 0
Top 3 Finishes - 0
Wins - 0
Best Finish - 32nd
Biggest Win - $0.00
Total Winnings - $0.00

TBD's Way:
Average Field Size - N/A
Average Finishing Place - N/A
Average Finishing Rank - N/A
Average Winnings - N/A
ITM Finishes - N/A
Final Tables - N/A
Top 5 Finishes - N/A
Top 3 Finishes - N/A
Wins - N/A
Best Finish - N/A
Biggest Win - N/A
Total Winnings - N/A

Hey now... this is going to be interesting! I know it may take a long while, TBD, to get your experiment really rolling, but I will be trying to keep tabs on this. This is a good exchange. Great post philly, and a good exchange from TBD, and Sly as well.

I agree with Philly's strategy, the updated version, and I try to play that way for the most part for sure. There are certain situations that occur that will make a slight variant on this, but the core of it is solid. "Playing tight" is in the realm here. Tight aggressive is what I like to call this strategy in some ways. Being the raiser when you strongly believe you have the best hand(and not the caller), and sticking to that is, I believe, solid play.

Thanks for the strategy.

I will definitely try this out soon.

Exactly which hands should NOT be folded after someone else raises?

nick that is where feel comes into play. if you think you have the best hand call or better yet raise, especially if you have position. basically the calling i was talking about is when you see a flop with 84 in the big blind with a K82 flop. don't call a pot size bet and hope to hit another 8 or 4. chances of even hitting any card on the flop are like 1 out of 3, them odds get worse on the last 2 which means your basically trying to get lucky, which as a poker player we don't want to try and get lucky, leave that to the bad players.

illphillllllll wrote:. remember when you bleed off x amount of chips then double up later thats 2x not in your stack. it can add up quick.

So true. If you can stop the bleeding and save those chips for when you have a nutz hand, that can be a critical bonus, and can mean the difference between ending ITM or outside the bubble. Good advice.

I don't really play many hands at the start only strong hands and after alot of the crazy players have gotten kicked out. I raise when I have good starting hands and also don't call raises to often. Play both the cards and the players.

yes i strongly agree. great post man. Raising is way better than calling