Here lately Ive been having problems in this time frame of a MTT tournaments. I do well during the earlier parts of the tourney most of the time. As soon as the blinds start reaching a considerable level I start having problems. Due to my lack of experience playing at these levels of blinds, I feel like Im sitting there just donating my Ante/Blinds to whoever pushes or raises.

Short of playing position how do you cope with weak starting hands? Im talking like K4 and so on..last night I problably sat through 40-60 hands where I didnt have anything above A6o. Eventually I was knocked out when I caught 9's and pushed with my remaining chips. I ended up placing in the 500's when I was 3rd a short while before.

This is happening more than I care for and I havent been able to come up with a game plan to battle this. So is there any seasoned players here that can offer some advice?

I always get bored or either way to to stoned to concentrate in MTT's, one time I was the chipleader out of 300 with 50,000 in chips, started with 1.5k. I didnt even make the money, I didn't even make the top 100 actually.


Stick to cash games, It's where the money's at. Otherwise just google some sng and mtt books, im sure there are tons out there.

My apologies for posting this in the wrong forum. I failed to notice the posting guidelines in the sticky above. If its not to much trouble could a mod move this thread? Please?

Originally Posted by User475

Short of playing position how do you cope with weak starting hands? Im talking like K4 and so on..last night I problably sat through 40-60 hands where I didnt have anything above A6o. Eventually I was knocked out when I caught 9's and pushed with my remaining chips. I ended up placing in the 500's when I was 3rd a short while before.

This is happening more than I care for and I havent been able to come up with a game plan to battle this. So is there any seasoned players here that can offer some advice?

If you get no playable hands, watch out for (re-)stealing possibilities. Good players with big stacks often raise from mid or late position with total air- come over the top when you're in the blinds. If the initial raiser is overcalled by a somewhat loose player, the situation is even better, always squeeze in such spots. Q3 off is more than good enough for this kind of play. Since you haven't played a hand, they will give you credit for a good hand if they are observant players. The only hands I never resteal with are hopeless hands like 32 off, I like to have at least a high card or suited connectors for the times they have a big hand such as 99+, Ak, Aq etc

^^^That actually happened during that tourney and I was to chicken to push with what I had. As for the cash games, Ive played a couple times but the idea of collusion keeps me from those tables.

Harrington on Hold'Em Volume 2 has invaluable information on how to play in certain stages of tournaments, depending on stack sizes and blinds.

Although having said that, I regularly suffer from the same problems that you describe when I play live MTT's (weekly at my local pub). The people I play against tend to be calling stations, so stealing doesn't work. It's terribly hard to play in this situation when you go card dead and the blinds go up.

Of critical importance IMO, and something Harrington suggests, is to push hard _before_ you get into the situation where you will get called no matter what. Once you lose the ability to make the blinds fold you are pretty much toast.