Never do well in 2nd hour of MTT

**I'mRooted** · 07-14-2011

In the first hour against the weaker players I generally at least double up and often triple or more.

Rarely out early either.

But the second hour I have noticed I stagnate and have roughly the same chip stack after the second hour.

At this point I tighten right up and limp to the bubble with half the average stack by hour 3.

Miss a lot of hands where I might flop second or 3rd pair with my kicker on a rag flop then fold to a 1/2 pot sized bet and see a set or 2nd pair land on the turn. If I was in these hands I feel I'd be finishing hour 2 well on top.

Not sure if my judgement is accurate though and I would just bleed more chips chasing.

**KnightofNarg** · 07-15-2011

I often stagnate in tournaments as well, if your situation is pretty poor, there's nothing you can do but just try to wait it out. Reviewing every hand will help. Look for playable hands you may have folded, see if you can find steal/resteal spots, places you could bluff against weak/tight player. Tournaments have high variance, and you must find every advantage you can get to get deep more often.

I always suggest tournament players should round out their games by becoming a solid cash player as well. Many tournament regulars will have a strong preflop game that is harder to gain an advantage over. By rounding yourself out with cashgames you gain a strong postflop edge that most tournament players can't compete with.

I don't often find chasing worth it, especially for 2pair/trips alone. If you have a good read that they may fold, using weak hands to bluff with is preferable since you gain extra equity from when you hit. With reads that they fire a single cbet on a low board and check to showdown it becomes better to call.

**I'mRooted** · 07-15-2011

Played a 4200 player $5.50 MTT and it played out very much like I described above. The difference was that $5.50 was a lot more than I usually spend to enter a tournament and I didn't want to gamble or bluff it away so easily in frustration. The net result was that I finished 201st without ever having risen above an average chipstack.

The attitude was hang in there for a couple more rounds and I'm up another $2 in prize money and see if a monster comes along.

I eventually got killed off by shoving KK against 99 V a SS and they hit a set and then soon after made the mistake of getting attached to a royal flush draw and chasing it to the river. The BB was by then 1/3 of my stack and I shoved it with J8 off.

Valuable lessons learnt though

I liked that last piece of advice BTW. I understand what you're saying and will find it useful. Thanks.

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