I know a few of my readers like to play in live poker MTTs
at local casinos and I admit to liking the occasional punt in them as well.
However these play differently to online games and it isn’t an area I have
covered or seen covered anywhere so I decided to write a short article giving
some general tips from my past experiences of these games. As with any article
you read or video you watch you should not take this advice as gospel since the
most important skill in poker is to be able to adapt to your current dynamics,
with that word of caution heeded, there may be some pointers in here that help
you with your casino donkaments.
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| Will you get lucky? |
First off I will define what I class as a casino tournament;
it may or may not be in a casino (but it usually is), more important than the
venue is the buyin which is typically anything from a £5 rebuy up to £50 (or
even £100) and the blind levels are quite short (15 to 20 minutes). The main
player pool will be entirely recreational players who mostly see poker as
another form of gambling, these events usually start in the middle of the
evening and are finished in the early hours of the morning.
It can help you tremendously to do some fact finding before
you even register to the tournament, particularly if you have never played at
the venue before. Some things to try and find out include:
All of this information gathered beforehand can sway your
decision in a marginal spot, maybe you are deciding whether to make a huge river
call, if there is re-entry then the call is more favourable as you can re-enter
but also your opponent is more likely to have a wider range as they can also
re-enter. The faster the blinds the more you will need to gamble, you should
always be aware of the next blind level in casino games as it is not uncommon
to go from 100/200 to 200/400 for example which slashes your effective stack in
half and you can go from 30bb to 15bb without realising if you are not paying attention and this often means you should me more inclined to push marginal spots towards the end of the 100/200 level that you may not if there is a 150/300 level. If there are cash
games running some players use the MTT as a time filler until the cash action
starts so will gamble more once the cash table is open.
- The structure
- What is the starting stack?
- How long are the levels (do they stay the same length throughout or do they go from say 30 minutes to 20 minutes after the break?)
- Are there any rebuys, is it a triple chance?
- Are they likely to be lots of levels missing?
- Are re-entries allowed?
- Are there cash games that start soon after the MTT has started
- Are deals likely?
- How flat is the payout structure?
With flatter payouts you can generally call a little wider in the end game as well but also should
not be open shoving quite as much. This is due to the fact that people are more
likely to gamble with flatter payouts as they aren’t so aware of big pay jumps
which often bring out a tendency to play tighter.
Once the game has started listen to table chat as often you
can pick up info on players, maybe they are new or they might be a regular
talking about their win last week. You will identify who knows each other and
might find out things about their playing style before seeing it in a hand. Of
course a lot of the table chat at these tables can be quite annoying but it can
still be useful if you can tolerate it.
Try to spot who the complete fish are, who are regulars that are maybe at least a little competent, those that are there to last as long as
possible and playing very tight and also see if there are any real good
players. See who is drinking and who is on coffee etc as those drinking alcohol
are more likely to be 'gambling' as a general rule.
Early on in these MTTs it is usually hard to isolate players
as any raise will get numerous callers so generally I find it best to limp in
with a wide range of hands to utilise my skill edge and get value postflop, generally
bluff very little but value bet hard as you will get called down by a lot of
hands, people will pay over the odds to chase their draw so make them pay as
much as possible but always be wary when the draw hits. This approach means you
will see lots of flops without paying too much with the chance of winning a big
pot if you hit and can value town a calling station. As the blinds go up rather
quickly the cost of a few bb in the first level may only be 1bb in a couple of
levels time so the loss of a few calls is not always that significant.
In these games players tend to be very showdown orientated,
that is they want to show their cards on the river so they won’t usually bet
with a wide range of hands, nor will they turn medium strength hands into a
bluff. This usually means that they will have a polarised range when they bet
the river so your top two pair hand may effectively be the same as top pair
against their range, this point is even more apparent if you are the aggressor
on the river and they raise your bet, this will often be completely polarised
to air or the nuts, more likely the nuts depending on the type of player.
Look out for sizing tells, often players will raise a larger
amount with hands like JJ, AK as they are scared to see the flop and the size
of their bets can help you narrow down their ranges, of course if there is not
a lot of raising you will not have a decent sample size to judge this on but if
you are in a marginal spot a little bit of guesswork in this regard can help
you make the right decision.
As the blinds start to increase it becomes easier to steal
preflop, particularly if you are getting close to the money. Even when you get
called it is often only by one or two players and c-betting at the right times
will help you accumulate chips whereas c-betting in the first couple of levels
will rarely get through. Don’t be afraid to shove your stack in as you will be
surprised how much fold equity you can have against the same players who were
seeing every flop in the first hour. One big weakness of these casino standard
players is they do not pay attention to their stack sizes so they will make
very bad decisions such as calling for half their stack preflop then folding
the flop so don’t assume they are pot committed as they won’t necessarily
understand that concept. They will also setmine for large portions of their
stack even with baby pairs.
To wrap up in one sentence, play small ball poker preflop in
the early stages and gradually increase the aggression as the blinds go up and
your opponents start to tighten up.
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| Remember your opponents may well be playing 'Poker Roulette' |
