Yeah, I have developed a bit of a "gameplan," but I don't know how useful this will be to others as its very dependent upon the blinds and level structure used in our local league.

So the basics of our league first -- 1,500 starting chips, 20 minute levels. Blinds: 25/25, 25/50, 50/100, 75/150 (first break, all green chips colored up to black 100's), 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000 (second break, all black chips colored up to blue 500's and white 1000's, levels now increase every 10 minutes), 1K/2K, 2K/4K, 4K/8K, 5K/10K, 10K/20K until finish. On average we've had 50-65 people showing per week and the skill level has ranged from fairly serious players to people who have no more experience than WPT broadcasts. The goal every week is to reach the top 30 percent and earn points. The scale is logrythmic so the difference between, say 18th and 16th is negligible, whereas the difference between 3rd and 1st is substantial.

My thought was that things would start out loose and get tighter/tougher as the league wore on. In reality, its been the opposite and has really loosened up. The last couple of weeks have been harder because a lot of the dead weight has vanished realizing that they won't be qualifying for the regional tournament.

As for specific strategy...I treat the first 3-4 levels like I do the early stages of an online SNG. I play suited connectors and one-gapers in late position because they make a killing if they hit. People "see" flushes...they don't "see" straights until after the river when you turn yours over and it bitchslaps their top pair/two pair. Around 75/150 or 100/200 I'll punt this strategy (depending on the health of my stack) and go to strictly "strong" starting hands (basically AJs,AQo+ and pairs) from anywhere but the small blind. Speaking of flushes, I will never again complain about how many people chase them online, because a lot of people show no regard for the math of the game and chase them in league too. A *LOT* of people. Between the first and second breaks its pretty much standard MTT strategy. I'm looking to win 2 pots of significance in this 80-minute block as that usually gets me positioned well for the run at the points.

The blinds-to-chips in play ratio becomes insane as you near the second break. Reading people, knowing their starting requirements and knowing how to play your position at a poker table can be huge assets here. Usually I've dispensed with the formality of raising at this point. The math of the game makes all-in or fold the two main options. Theoretically if I had a large enough stack at this point I'd use some middle ground here, but in reality there's only been one player in nine weeks to get past the second break with a high enough percentage of the chips in play to make this worth consideration.

You get about one lap of the table in per level at this point, so any time you put chips in play you want to make it count. A lot of people will play turtle at this point and try to outlast other players, so the all-in aggression also steals a lot of chips (please note that since there's no ante, if I go all in I'm not really on a steal, there's no Gus Hanson all-in with 83 offsuit stuff here...I've got a hand of some sort, if someone wants to call, that's fine, if they want to give me their blinds, that's fine also).

There's not much else to say after the second break because there's very little skill involved from then on and it becomes push and pray poker. having a quick math mind and the ability to calculate others' stacks and when the level increases will strike can help you decide whether to push a marginal hand or wait and hold onto the chips because players X and Y are going to get screwed when the blinds to from 2K/4K to 4K/8K in 2 minutes. Beyond that, you just pick a hand and go with it...this really is the stage with the least amount of skill involved and anyone with a knowledge of where their poker hand ranks on a hierarchy of others' possible hands can play this stage. personally, I find it to be a downer to play poker for three hours and then have a tournament come down to this.

All that said, for Week 10 since I've got nothing to lose/gain, I was thinking about raising PF on every sixth hand regardless of cards just for the sheer hell of it until the first break and then deciding from there what to do. Or something odd like that -- I just want to try and play one tournament in as un-me a fashion as possible and see what happens. If nothing else, I'll be drinking margaritas a bit earlier and all those people that think they have a read on my play are going to freak out

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