sanity check
I recently got much better postflop, easily maintaining more than average stack throughout almost entire tournament, and because of that I don’t feel comfortable anymore raise/calling shoves for more than 10bb effective with less than AK or JJ. I just got kicked off from a tourney that was important for me bankrollwise. Around 500 entries, 37 left, average stack 20bb, I’m holding AQs in middle position and 30bb, I min-open, Button jams for 18bb. The very next hand, also somehow middle position, I’m shoving my remaining 12bb holding 66. Is this a standard play? Kindly help me out here
10 Replies
Your instinct is probably right honestly. Once you're comfortable postflop and maintaining above average stack, there's way less reason to get it in pre with marginal hands at 10bb+ effective. The old 'shove or fold' mentality at those stacks works when your postflop edge is small, but if you're consistently outplaying people post then protecting your stack and being more selective pre makes total sense.
Sounds reasonable and for a brief moment I thought about folding that AQs but then this old framework „you can’t fold AQs HU this deep” kicked in and I bot-called… I slowly start to realize that might not be the best way for me, some people are making their way to the FT by raise/calling with worse hands, some - like me - might just outplay the population postflop and flip with premiums only. Tilt factor is important too - when you spend couple hours building your stack and then lose it in one stupid spot, then you become a monkee
I also moved to ACR which feels like stars from years ago, I’m not advertising, just telling. Variance feels way more under control here than on the OTHER SITE that Nath forbid me to mention by name. When I lose pre, it’s mostly cause I got into a pot with a worse hand. Sure, there are some exceptions but they are statically reasonable. Also players seem much more predictable, even at my micro stakes. It’s much closer to poker than what I’ve experienced on the OTHER SITE
I understand what you are saying but I would be careful around over-generalizing. Depending on population tendencies (and reads if you have them) it may often be correct to play tight against these jams, but its going to depend on a lot more than the number of effective blinds. It would depend on the position of the players, the size of the stacks and so on.
It is possible to play in a way that reduces variance, but sadly MTTs are inherently high variance and sometimes we just have to go with the best play even if it risks our tournament.
noted
Let's be clear. What you are forbidden from doing is repeatedly making threads and posts, including in other people's threads, to complain a site is rigged.
This is a strategy forum, not a forum to vent about rigging because you're running bad in $2 MTTs.
We are people too, with feelings and rights. It’s our vulnerability that makes us human. Better than bragging about one’s winnings
Got it. Don’t worry I won’t troll more here, I found out that Politics is a great place to do this, I’m skilled at it, now I’m relearning poker
The tilt factor point is real. Spending hours building a stack and then losing it in one flip hits different than losing early. That psychological cost is real equity and people underweight it. If your edge is postflop, then yeah, your game plan should reflect that, not some generic 10bb framework that was built for people without that edge.
