Making it to the final table in MTTs

Yesterday I didn't come far in the $11 TN. My concentration was not very good.

This week I started with the Betting 101 from Lucky Luke.

Know the reasons why you are betting
For example:
Blocker bet when it is very thin . And you want to control the pot.
Inducing bet to induce opponent to shove light
Protection with TP on a wet flop
To charge the equity of your opponent
To claim our equity if our equity is vulnerable. And we have something of a frequency that we are ahead. We want to take down the pot at once. Ahigh vs KQo.

Bet in order to have a correct ratio value and bluff. This is only if we have a thinking opponent and opponent is putting us on a range.

Yesterday I played a live TN buy in EU20. And reached the final table

18 players, 3 places payed.
Finished 5th.

Last hand flopped TopSet 9 and all in with about 17BB.
Got called by SB with 15bb and a SD.
Got called by BB with 22bb and a FD with Qxs.

On the river BB hit his flush and it was over.

Equilab
TopSet 9: 55%
FD: 30%
SD: 17%

Yesterday there were only 18 players so offcourse it was a bit easier to reach the final table than if there would have been 50 players.

Betting 101 from Lucky Luke.
Sizing

There are several considerations about sizing.
- determine your betsize on the turn so that you will have a potsizebet left on river
- in which spots do we switch to x/call-mode and give-up-strategy

- sometimes we can use Overbets as a bluff. As opponent is on a capped range.

SPR and building pots
We have to learn how to play different SPR' s
1 Be aware of pot commitment, f.e. don't put in half of your stack and then fold on the next street.

2 Build the pot on the turn with the right sizing in order to be able to jam on the river. Even if you don't plan to jam the river.
With this kind of turnsizing your opponents will anticipate those rivershoves more often.

3 Mix up you sizings. You are most difficult to read.

4 Mix up your strategy.
There are spots where 2 lines are possible and each line has his advantage.
They have about the same EV.
Mix up your strategy with both lines.

5 Thin value on the turn
F.e with PocketPair and there is a higher rank on the board and board is 2tone.
- argument for 2ndbarrel is that we want to protect our equity and don't want to give a free card so that opponent can draw for free
- argument for check behind is that we want to balance.
If opponent probes on river we need some hands with which we can call. With this pocketpair we can call.

Next weekend I will play a TN in the Open Nederlands Kampioenschap Poker. This is a Dutch championship for recr's.

Review of my TN from last sunday: what went well and what can be improved?

What went well
Counting the stacks of all players and knowing who is short and who is big.
Being aware of the increase of the levels and counting how many bb's are in play.
Paying attention to who is playing tight, who is playing solid, who is too loose and who is too aggressive.
Tighten up if a loose aggressive 3bettor is behind me.
Use pressure with my bigger stack on an opponent with a shorter stack, so that he is at risk for his TNlife.

What can be improved
Learning how to play when I am longtime carddead.
I am not playing enough hands when I am carddead and my frequencies are not correct. So I am exploitable.

Learning push/fold ranges when I have 14bb-15bb

Better distinguishing between early stage and middle stage.

On the final table: With average stack calculating risk versus not taking risk and waiting till the shortstacks are eliminated.
To learn this I have to study with ICMizer.

Yesterday the TN Open Dutch championship appeared to be a turbo TN. Blinds went up way too quickly, so not enough time and possibilities for skill and adaptation to opponents.
But it was an entertaining afternoon and we had some good laughter.

Last week I bought Flopzilla. To exercise with how ranges connect with the board.
To get more insights in how ranges narrow on later streets.
To better calculate how many combos I have in my range.
And how many combos opponent can have in his range.

Yesterday we were with only 10 persons in the live EU 20 tournament.
I reached 3rd place and was just in the money and received EU 35.

I practiced sqeezing in the blind.
I practiced stealing in the button when I had a quite big stack. But I didn't get folds, both blinds called.
Flop was quite dry and I cbetted quite large to make them fold. But the BB called and I had to give up on the turn.

In a limped 3way pot and I was in BB and a dry 642R flop, the SB lead out and I thought he was trying to take it down.
I raised to steal it from him. But it didn't work out, he called with 6x.

I am taking notes of the people, so when I start to know them better I can play better against them.
To know who are the callingstations, the bluffers, the LAGs. The limpers that don't fold to an iso or a sqeese.

Lesson from Lucky is that you can't win a tournament without stealing.

Yesterday we were with 28 persons in the live EU 20 tournament.
I reached 8th place.

x) Hand KK EP I openraise to 3bb and I get 4 callers.
The flop was not favourable, Axx monotoon hearts and I didn't have a heart.
So I x/folded and that was good. On the turn a 4th heart appeared and 2 opponents got better hands.

x) With 12 players left on 2 tables I went all in with 77 on the Button.
I had about 14bb. SB had 7 bb and BB 20bb.

SB called all in and BB folded.

Unfortunately the river was a 3 and I lost half of my stack.

Preflop 81%
Flop 92%
Turn 95%

Bad beat. It took me about 3 minutes to come over it mentally.
Then I had resilience and continued to play Push and Fold and was able to reach the finale table.

x) On the final table KJo EP+1 and I had about 7bb.
Is this a push?
I wasn't sure because it was in an early position. I folded.
In the scedule from Pokerstrategy it says
EP with 5bb shove with BrBro.
MP with 8bb shove with BrBro.

If it had been suited then it would have been a clear shove.

x) I have to exercise with ICMizer.
In this TN the payouts were 1st 195eu, 2nd 125eu, 3rd 95eu, 4th 65eu.

Shove in early position when you only have 8bb left
All pocketpairs
ATs+
K9s+
Q9s+
J8s+
T9s

A9s you can, as it seems in the scedule from Pokerstrategy, openraise.
You only shove A9s in early position if you have no more than 5bb.

A2s-A9s with 5bb or less = Shove in early position.

I think this scedule is maybe a bit tight?
Because in some articles you read that you can start shoving already with 20bb.
The fewer players on the final table, the wider the shoving-ranges??

I received 5 tickets from Bwin.
In 3 MTTs I came in the money.

This weekend in the live TN we were with 62 persons.
I reached 31st place.

x) Level 2 in 4way pot a combobluff on turn and river after flop was checked around, didn't work out.
2 players folded, but the 3rd player thought long time and then finally made the call with his flopped TP Kings.

In these kind of TN on the first levels it is probably not worth making this kind of combobluffs.
Better wait till midphase or endphase.

x) Pocket KK no result. Axx and 2 players had Ax.

x) Twice good OESDs, but didn't hit.

x) I made a mistake at the end fullring. I had KQs MP1 with 8bb.
Tight player with 3bb UTG shoved.
I rebounded shoved.

This was a mistake, because I have to shove this hand only when I am first in.
But if a tight player shove I knew that I was against Ax.
Ax vs KcQc is 57 - 43.

I had to fold.

He played AA and that is 83 -17.

Another player made the call with 77.
Equity is
AA 66
KcQc 16
77 18

I was out at 31st place.

Lesson to be learned: when you are not in the blinds you never rebound with BrBr
Hands you rebound with are
77+
A9s+
ATo+

When do we push with BrBr when we are first in?
with 13 bb in the SB
with 10bb in CO and BTN
with 8bb in MP
with 5bb in EP

In these loose live TN I have to find a way how to play.
Considerations

1 Standard openraise like online doesn't work so well, because there are too many callers.
And mostly you don't hit and to a standard cbet you don't get enough folds.

As they are much looser than online, I have to learn how to read them.
They play a lot of weak aces.

2 Limp? I don't know, maybe this is a better way in these loose MW-pots.
Seeing a cheap flop and hopefully hit better than your opponents.
But on the long run it also costs a lot of chips.

3 Bluff? Early stage doesn't work.
I will try this next time only in mid stage and end stage.

4 Tighten up in early stages?
Not wasting my stack in early stages with mediocre hands.
On the other hand it is quit cheap in early stages and maybe catch some nice flop.

5 Frequencies
Maybe in the early stages it is not so important to worry about my frequencies.
Don't play rubbish hands only because to avoid being a nit.
Maybe opponents are not paying attention to my frequencies.
The play in general is Fit or Fold.

Hello adelaar,

Nice blog and looking forward to reading future posts
Been playing the daily dollar rebuy and hoping to get a decent BR to play the $11 games again. My favourite being the Sunday storm and I wish you all the luck in reaching your final table and winner goals

Regards

Matt

Last Saturday the Live TN had 56 players. And I reached the final table, yes!

Final table
4 players left, 8K/16K/ button-ante 8K

I was on CO with 12bb
BTN had 12 bb
SB had 18bb
BB had 9 bb

I pushed with A4s. Unfortunately BTN called with AQ and my TN was over.
But I had a nice pay-out and it was a successful evening.

I checked my push in ICM-izer.
It was -EV! -0.24

I didn't know the stacksizes of the blinds exactly.
If I put SB on 22bb and BB on 5bb, then my push was +EV. +0.61

What did I learn?
It is very important to know exactly the stacksizes of each opponent.
Dependent on those stacksizes you have to push or to fold.

How does a pushrange change when we are still with 5 players at the final table?

I on MP with 12bb
CO with 12bb
BTN with 12bb
SB with 18bb
BB with 9bb
This is otherwise than I expected. I put these stacks in ICMizer en first calculate Nash equilibrium.
Then calculate.
And then my pushrange is much wider!
43%, I didn't expect that at all.

My pushrange is all pockets and all Aces
All suited kings
Suited Queens with 3kicker
Offsuited kings with 4kicker
Offsuited Queens with 8kicker

Suited 8,9, T and J with 7kicker
Offsuited T and J with 9kicker

If we had been with these 5 players my push with A4s would have been +3.6

O, I see I made a mistake with the stacksizes in ICM. My free calculations are finished for today. So I will do the calculations again tomorrow and correct the pushrange! Sorry!

I have corrected my mistake from yesterday and have put in the stacksizes as follows.
How does a pushrange change when we are still with 5 players at the final table?

I am on MP with 12bb
CO with 12bb
BTN with 12bb
SB with 18bb
BB with 9bb

Our pushrange is 11,2%. 148 combo's.
99+(36 combo's)
All suited Aces (48 combo's)
Offsuited Aces with J-kicker (36 combo's)

Suited Kings with T-kicker (12 combo's)
KQo (12 combo's)
QJs (4combo's)

You see that this pushrange is:
1 half of the range is Ax
2 a quarter of the range is pocketpairs.

How does a pushrange change when we are with only 3 players left at the final table?

10K/20K/10K button-ante

I am on BTN with 15bb
SB with 22bb
BB with 5bb

Our pushrange on the button is 19%. 252 combo's
33+ (72 combo's)
All suited aces (48 combo's)
Offsuited aces with 8-kicker (72 combo's)

Suited Kings with 9-kicker (16 combo's)
Suited Queens with 9-kicker (12 combo's)
JTs (4 combo's)
T9s (4 combo's)
KQo (12 combo's)
KJo (12 combo's)

The pocketpairs and the aces are together 192 combo's, that is 80% of the total range.
Like in the situation with 5 players left, the aces are 50% of the range.
And the pocketpairs are almost 30% of the range.

Q9s and T9s are only +0.03
Are they worthwhile to push?

Compared with the previous calculation.
How does the button-pushrange change when the stacksize of the chipleader SB is smaller and of the shortstack BB is bigger? 3 players left at the final table.

10K/20K/10K button-ante

I am on BTN with 15bb
SB with 19bb
BB with 8bb

Our pushrange on the button becomes a bit wider: 21,9%. 290 combo's
22+ (78 combo's)
All suited aces (48 combo's)
Offsuited aces with 8-kicker (72 combo's)

Suited Kings with 8-kicker (20 combo's)
Suited Queens with 9-kicker (12 combo's)
J9s+ (8 combo's)
T9s (4 combo's)
KQo (12 combo's)
KJo (12 combo's)
KTo (12 combo's)
QJo (12 combo's)

A8o = +0.03
K8s = +0.02
KTo = +0.02

When the stacks in the blinds are less out of one another, I can push a few combo's more. But not a very big difference.

This range consist of
27% pocketpairs
41% Ax

17% BrBr o
15% suited Kings, Queens, Jacks and T9s

In a qualifierTN yesterday I made it to the last 8 of 50 players.
It was a survival TN where there were 8 tickets to win.

My stacksize was 6th or 7th. I had still 6bb when the TN was over.

In this kind of survivalTN I don't know how exactly to use ICM.
I have to see in ICMizer if you can select this kind of TN.

Hi adelaar,
When all 8 players get the same amount, the incentive to try for first is gone.

If you are better than 8th place, you're in a folding war.
If you're worse 8th place, you want to shove against hands that you can hurt -- 7th and 8th places.
If you're close to the chip lead, you want to avoid tangling with other high stacks, and you can shove any two vs players whose stacks are so small it would not put you at risk of losing your ticket.

It sounds like you know all that already.
That is the general principles -- what the exact ranges are, I have no idea -- and I'm not even sure exact ranges are possible, because player tendencies come into play in this situation.

I used to play Double-or-Nothing tournaments on Party Poker, which are much the same thing.
Perhaps you could get an idea of what the ranges would look like by using a nash calculator and trying that -- like so:
HoldemResource Nash Calculator

I did the above with 8 people paid equally, 10 people left, and two shortish stacks in the blinds.
Notice how MP1, MP3, CO & BTN can shove any two -- they cover everyone behind them.
SB can also shove ATC, even though BB covers him, but BB can only call w/ 3.2%

If you have ICMIzer or Hold'em Resources you can probably do this sort of thing in there.

Hope that helped.

All the best,
VS

Thanks Vorpal,
That was a good exercise that you did with 10 players left. And it shows that the players who have covered everyone behind them, can shove any two.

But what do you think? In case you are 2nd stack and you shove and loose.
Then you go back to for example 5th or 6th and suddenly your chance of hitting the money deminishes.
I think that you have hurt your chipEV a lot.
So I wonder if it is worthwhile to take the risk of shoving with any two.

In a survivalTN with 2nd stack I think I prefer just waiting till the other players make mistakes and bust.