Help Please. First Tournament I have ever played in.

Patience has never been my strong point so I'm guessing that this is the main adjustment I will need to make.

Defend your BB with a wide range vs a loose or aggressive later position blind stealer but you'll need a legit hand to defend against an early position raiser or a nit. Fold your way to victory. Small hand small pot. Don't chase draws. You can't win a tournament in the first hour but you can certainly lose it.

1. Live to play another hand. Poker tournaments are only lost in the first couple of hours, they are never won then. Don't be afraid to be bluffed off a hand, just survive. Let the other players eat each other and take chances.

2. Think in terms of big blinds. Always know how many big blinds you have, how many big blinds calling a raise will cost you and size your bets/raises according to big blinds. Also pay attention to how the next level will reduce the number of big blinds you have and how long until that happens.

3. Don't bleed to death, go out with a bang. Below 10 big blinds, you have 1 option--all in or fold, and it's better to raise all-in than call all-in. Use your position and cards to pick your spots for this situation.

Thank -You.

This is a key worry of mine. I am in no doubt that I am going to make mistakes with my bet sizing because I very them wildly in cash games. Will an experienced player be able to detect my immaturity very quickly because of say less than optimal bet sizing, and more importantly, how will they exploit it if they do?

Is there some sort of method I should be using to determine how many BB's I should be willing to risk pre, post flop and on the turn?

The level ups are going to reduce the number of BB's that everyone has no? Are you just saying it's more of a consideration if I am short stacked compared to the table?

Thank-You.

When you say pushing every edge, do you mean that I need to focus on thin value betting? I'm a fast and accurate reader of the board and placing people on hands is a strong point of mine.

Thank-You.

I've heard that I should start to loosen my game as the levels progress, but presumably only if my stack allows it?

Is there a point in the levels (other than being a massive chip leader) that it makes sense to start chasing draws?

No, I mean avoiding volatile spots that might be long-term profitable in favor of staying alive to slowly and steadily grind out chips.

I'm not saying Phil Hellmuth's strategies seem 100% sound, but there is some logic behind his extreme reluctance to push thin pre-flop edges.

If you are a good player and can steadily win low-risk chips, you can pass on many of the tightrope spots.

What’s the buy-in? Honestly, anything below $10k and your opponents will be very unlikely to notice suboptimal bet sizing.

Tournaments at that level tend to be very ABC and if the field is larger enough, you may encounter frequent table breaks so you won’t necessarily be with your table long enough to get an accurate read on tendencies.

Standard pre flop raises are around 2.5xbb now but can range from 2x-4x at times. Go for 1/4-1/3 pot flop bet and 1/2-2/3 pot on turn (if you’re going to continue and stack sizes/board texture and stack sizes call for it). River is no real standard. Don’t be afraid to overbet pot if you have a polarized range.

Blind raises naturally diminish everyone’s stack, but obviously impact short stacks more so.

OK, there is no buy-in. This is a promotional tournament run by a major casino for the top 100 winning (pots) nlhe cash players over the last quarter. Top 20 players get paid with the top 3 prizes being in excess of 10k. The field is going to made up of nlhe cash players who regularly play 1/2 to 25/20 and seasoned tournament players who also play cash.

In terms of tournaments, I would say his strategy is very sound. There's no escaping the fact that he has the most bracelets in history, and by a long shot, over a long period of time. I appreciate that it's not fashionable, but I have a lot of respect for the guy.

Oh yeah, nothing to worry about at all with that. And this is definitely an ideal first tournament situation to get your feet wet and see what they’re like.

I suspect there will be loads of suboptimal tournament play, but nobody will even notice.

Just have fun and enjoy the experience!

First of all good luck.

I play mostly NL tournaments now though I will sometimes play NL cash games at like 2/5 or 5/10 when I get knocked out and am not buying back in.

The biggest difference between Tournaments and cash games that I have noticed is that in cash games just about everyone is big stacked. And in cash games if they lose a pot and go below starting stack they can always put chips on the table. In tournaments its important to know what the other players stack sizes are when you are in a hand against them. When a bet would be more than 33% effective stack size then I typically jam instead because otherwise it is basically pot committing (except when it is a river bet, at which point a player may call because there won't be any further action).

Pre flop limping in tournaments is not good IMO. You will be playing too many pots OOP and you will be giving players opportunities to call with weak hands on or near the BTN. You also give the SB the opportunity to play virtually all of their hands and the BB gets to see a flop for free. There have been many tournaments where because players limped preflop I won massive pots with very unpredictable hands. Now you won't be alone in limping preflop. Once at the Venetian in Las Vegas I played in a $1,600 tournament where like 5 players at my table were limping preflop and one ended up being the chip leader at the table. The others didn't do well (one guy got knocked out twice)... Similarly in WSOP Senior tournaments there are tons of limpers (and at least one extremely grateful player). Oddly when I played in Prague for a year at Rebuy Stars Luka (over 100 tournaments) there were no limpers at all in tournaments over $100. And the playing field was basically better than anywhere I have ever played. 2 to 5 GTO /Solvers at every table. Also note that all tournament players have seen players limp/raise with AA. There are very few other hands that players do that sort of thing with. So you will not have the opportunity to re-raise as much as you would like.

I would raise preflop in consistent sizing amounts. In cash games players tend to raise large sometimes and small other times. In tournaments that will be a dead giveaway to strength of hands. You will notice that players that over-raise pre-flop often have JJ (and now sometimes AK). For me over 100 blinds early on I raise to 3x. Between 50 and 100 blinds (effective stack) I make it 2.5x. And 15 to 50 blinds I make it 2x or 2.1x (people fold in the BB a little more against 2.1x than 2x according to WSOP Main Event champ Greg Raymer). Under 15 blinds effective stack I mostly just jam though if there are ICM considerations like being near the bubble or at the final table I likely would be jamming at only < 12 bb's. Keeping it consistent will make it impossible for other players to read the potential strength of your hand. Similarly with 3-bet preflop sizing.

Like in cash games, raising in late position is a very good thing, but if the BTN, SB and/or the BB are extremely aggro then I stop doing it wide.

Note that flop bet sizing should also be consistent. For me if the flop hits my range a little (like Axx/Kxx/Qxx/Jxx) I cbet like 33% pot. If it hits my range a lot (like AKx/AQx/AJx/ATx/KQ/etc.) I make it like 66% pot. By sizing consistently opponents have no idea whether I hit the flop or not when I cbet. One thing to consider is that when there is a player in position and the flop does not smash my range I often check instead of cbet. That way pots don't get out of control. Also cbetting in tournaments is only basically done vs 1 or 2 players. 3 or more opponents and I don't cbet automatically even if the flop hits my range. I do make bets in a balanced way against 3+ players when I hit the flop or I am semi-bluffing, but I rarely bluff with air in these situations.

Because people can't rebuy into the tournament there probably won't be over bluffing early on. At least not with huge river polarizing bets where somebody is trying to double up and will rebuy in if they lose.

Some great advice. Many Thanks 🤞🏻

Thank You all for the help, much appreciated.

I managed to -

1) Survive KK vs AA in the early rounds. Greatly diminished my stack, but I grinded back.

2) Survive being all-in about 5 times.

3) Find some patience for waiting from premium hands that I never knew I had.

4) Cash for a decent amount which was a pleasant surprise.

5) Get trapped into going all in dead (straight draw vs flopped flush) in the later stages (I Had 11BB).

6) Prepare a great concoction of foods that would keep me going steadily only for it all to be confiscated by the casino before I went in.

7) Realise after 8 hours of play with a cigarette and toilet break only every 2 hours that my dream of playing the WSOP main event is never going to happen.

I'm feeling proud of myself today. Thanks again, all of the information was taken in, written down on a cheat sheet and used to it's fullest.

If those both happened in your first tournament then congratulations. And don't get spoiled by it lol.

Thank-You. I am happily accepting of the fact that I got very lucky.

It won't spoil me believe me. If there's one thing I realised after playing this tournament it's that I don't have the patience for them and certainly not for the WSOP ME. I only played it because I got a free entry.

Cash to tournament is mostly about stack depth awareness. At 100bb deep you can play exploitatively like you do in cash, but once stacks compress to 20-25bb the game becomes basically push/fold and your edge comes from shoving the right hands, not postflop play. The limp/raise line works fine in the early levels but once antes kick in open-raising becomes clearly better since the pot is already juicy before anyone acts. On BB defense: yes defend wide, but pull it back compared to cash because you cannot reload when you lose a flip.

Great Advice 👍

It was absolutely. I wrote those 3 tips in my pocket handbook (along with some others that really struck home) and read them whilst having a cigarette on breaks. In the first ten minutes I had KK vs AA and I managed to fold after a 4-Bet from a bigger stack post flop. It was the first tip that helped me do that because it makes so much sense. Point being that it is something I would NEVER do in a cash game.

Helped me a great deal and I am very appreciative.

Yes, I agree and think that's why I find it so tiring and different mentally. I found myself almost having to consider and calculate stack sizes with every hand. It's the primary reason why tournament poker is not for me unless the buy-in is complementary of course 😀. I am a big fan of post flop play and it's what interests me most about poker.

It is so different to cash and I hadn't realised just how much. In a cash game, I can just get in there, isolate my opponent and how best to get all his chips based on the stack at hand. In the tournament, my neck my neck was getting tired from having to go around the entire table before I put a single chip in.

I'm not sure how you guys do it, but know it's beyond my capabilities to do this for days straight and then get booted out after all that effort on a flip.

I also hadn't realised how many flips you actually have to survive to go deep in a tournament, especially when the blinds start increasing dramatically. It's a bloody minefield for sure.