Lo Buyin MTT & SNG Strategy?

[gouger666]

If anyone has good strategy for low buy in donkfests post it here...I'm sure alot of beginners would like to know. I myself play them very tight and aggressive but not too aggressive due to donk calls and suckouts. I rarely bluff in these.

[Dr Fill Good]

Take alot of notes, you are going to find every kind of fish at that level. After you have an idea of the players you are facing make decisions accordingly. Avoid the weak tight players, call down the psycho paths with mid-top pairs if you notice them getting wild.

If possible be the most aggressive on the bubble, from my experience the low buy-in tourneys get insanely tight around the bubble so push in late position as often as possible. (There are always exceptions, which comes back to notes. You need to know who you can steal from and who will call with 72)

Just know your table, you don't have to worry about table image because most of the players you are up against won't notice.

Hope some of this helped.

[wreaks]

Early on, play your big hands really hard and fast. No one believes anyone, and you'll also get called by draws. Later on try to get more equity out of your good and average hands, and call people down with top pair.

Other than that, listen to the Doc. He's got some good advice in there.

[dyehard]

Good advice Doc and Wreaks. Do you think this strategy is applicable to the $5 and $10 buy ins?

[Dr Fill Good]

Taking notes and knowing your table is a good choice at any limit. Probably one of the advantages chipless wonder has on a lot of players is how extensive his notes are. It helps give him so much more info on players, and decision making comes a lot easier. You get a different breed of players as you get into the medium buy ins though, its harder to generalize.

There is a lot of different advice I could give you about it, as those are the tournaments I spent my first 2 years of online poker in, slowly and painfully building up my bankroll and my poker knowledge. But its hard to make sweeping peices advice on it without having a bit more information about troubles you are running into.

[gouger666]

I was thinking of 10$ and under when I made this thread....The 5$ and under are the real donkfests.

[unibetkjell]

I like the 5$ and 10$ 45man-tournaments at fulltilt, and I do exactly as you say.
I often get very far, but at the final table I often get the last place not being payed because I get really passive and afraid to push. I always push with something like A7-AQ when I have to, and then a bigstacker calls with AK, KK, AA, QQ etc all the time.

Earlier today I lost AA vs QQ with only 15 people left and having one of the biggest stacks. Its ****ing annoying, but I dont think I did a bad job going allin preflop and getting called by QQ, but still I regret as ****.

[unibetkjell]

Let me add:

When you play really tight-agressive at the very start of the tournament, you might get in a streak where you dont hit anything at all with AK-AQ-AJ, and at that point I may bluff too much or tilt abit. So annoying.

Thanks for the good advices, and keep them coming.

[siash69]

The advice offered above is solid advice. Below is some of my thoughts which I have copied and pasted from a few threads during my SnG challenge which was at $10, 9man, non turbo and on Full Tilt, so apologies for some of the swinging backwards and forwards and Dr Fill mentions the advantage of taking notes which I think is probably deserving of its own thread so I might try and rustle one up.

In the early stages "tight is definately right", I dont mind letting players slug it out at the early blind levels and have often found that players fall in love with their hands early on and there is usually a KO or two at the first few blind levels, I used to find it daunting when playing with a starting stack upagainst players who had chanced their arm and doubled or even trippled up but now it holds no fears for me. patience is the key for me now and playing my good starting hands aggressively in the early stages, no clever tricky slow plays or trying to get creative.

I think the most important aspect I have begun to understand more is the value of position, I try not to open limp in early position, rag aces and low PP's go staright in the bin, Cold Calling Pre Flop in early positon is bad

As the blinds go up I try and be more aggressive when Im on the button, cut off and hijack.

Another thing which used to catch me out is C-Betting into a multiway pot when I am in position which has more often than not got me in trouble by the willingness of other players OOP willing to call my attempts to take a pot when its checked round to me in position, so I have found it hard but am now willing to check/fold on subsequent streets, not everytime, if I feel the circumstances are right I might take a stab at winning the pot, purely to mix my game up but I am able to fold when facing resistance.

I still can be over aggressive when on the bubble and dare not think how many times if I had been a bit more conservative when four handed that I would have cashed, but recognising this fact is the first important part of trying to correct this.

OOps, One more thing I think Limp/calling a raise in general is a weak play, thats why I muck low PPs in early position because I think the set value has decreased dramatically when I have to call a raise from late position and the odds of hitting a set are very low anyway so I take that decision away by instamucking, in late position I may throw a raise in with a PP or just call if I think I can get in cheap, but as the field decreases I will be more inclined to raise with my PPs from varying positions.

Some times I may limp/call a strong hand when the field has narrowed down again just to mix my game up.

Im back

I dont multitable more than 2 games at once for 2 reasons:

1: I cant manage more than 2 and can concentrate pretty well on just the 2 games.

2: I often find several other players multitabling and quite like it if I am playing the same player in 2 games, this is because I can get a bit more information about how they play and tend to get more showdown information.

Also since using PT3 I have got quite a lot of players with HH of nearing 1000 which is quite a good sample for assessing their style of play.

Particular stats I pay attention to other than VP/PFR/AF are the:

Check/Raise stats (it can influence my decision to make a C-Bet).

C-Bet Flop stats (if someone has a high % stat, I might sometimes check/raise with middle/bottom pair or a good draw and I know people think check/raising with air is a questionable play but if I feel if the circumstances are right I have been known to do it just to mix my game up again).

Similarly with the Attempt To Steal, I have recognised through analyzing my own stats that my blind play is a weakness in my game and tended to be too passive when in the blinds so when I feel the situation is right I will defend my blinds sometimes with a call OOP or a reraise with varying hands if someone is targetting my blinds frequently, even if I have to fold due to resistance or missing the flop I think it has demonstrated that I am prepared to defend my blinds and is quite useful to do in the early stages as players may think about doing it again especially when the blind levels have increased and can have a serious impact on stack sizes.

Conversely if someone is playing very tight with low VP/PFR/AF and then combined with a high Fold to SB/BB Steal % and a high Fold To C-Bet % I will open my raising hand range and attempt to steal more when the blinds have increased to significant amount (normally 80/40 and upwards).

Now I know trying to assimilate all this information in the time allowed can be quite tricky and especially when multitabling so I have all the stats above configured in my HUD and have assigned colour ranges to all the stats above (excluding VP/PFR/AF) to show them in "green" when they are above the 70%, which can be a quick indicator of potential targets for blind stealing, just because they all show green I will not just raise them with junk but it is a quick way for me to pay particular attention when I may have a steal opportunity and saves me from getting the main HUD drop down menu up and cluttering my screen.

There may well be a lot of leaks in what I have said and would welcome any comments.

Having said all that I achieved my goal so I hope it wasnt more luck than the way I played!! :-)

[oh um really]

i like this. i will try to implement it.