Wow you are very tight. Too tight given the obvious skill edge you have at those limits. You are leaving a ton of money on the table.
If you are really only playing A2xx and AAxx multi-way that is next level tight.
What is the reason you like playing so tight? Do you not trust your player and board reading skills?
I’m sure you realize this but you can be WAY more short stack in split and stud games then you can in Holdem. A few bets is not big deal.
Against an opponent who is playing every hand HU, you do have to defend pretty widely so they can’t have an automatic profit preflop. Depending on how they play post-flop, check-raising is usually a big part of HU limit.
People used to NL sometimes panic in limit tournaments because they don’t understand that 5 big bets can be a huge stack.
I’ve never played against someone who completed all their bring-ins. I’d be wary about polarizing my range so that I have a capped range when I just call.
Yea I have played a lot of limit tourneys back in the day. I just felt like any hand against this guy was committing my stack so I tightened up, probably was the wrong move because he pretty much grinded me down as I got mostly trash for 30 mins straight.
Sometimes you have no moves if you are just being dealt bottom 20% hands.
I trust my math skills and I think most other hands are marginal at best. Sure, I’m still playing hands like A345, but experience and the numbers I’ve run suggest that hands like 2345 should probably be folded in early position in tournaments, though I might still play it in cash games. Something like AKJ4ds is an example of a hand that I think is playable for an open-raise if I can get the pot heads-up, but which I would otherwise usually fold.
I might be playing too tight, but I think that is better than playing too loose because I am cocky about how much better I am. My biggest strength is that I don’t have an ego when I play.
It’s not cockiness. If you are better (which you are) you will play marginal spots far better. There is lots of money to made in those spots.
Obviously you know you better but why leave a few BB/hour on the table if you opened up a little. I doubt it a lot it hurts your win rate.
I also think you’re playing too tight, play anything reasonable.
and I’m a guy who almost never plays 2345, it’s a shit hand
I’m talking about adjusting to specifically tournament play, where I think trying to squeeze out small edges in chip EV is usually not good for your tournament prospects. A lot of my edge in tournaments comes simply from not playing hands that you should play in a cash game but not a tournament.
My UTG range is mostly AAxx and A2xx, but it also include many hands with an ace and two wheel cards (I’m folding A458r) or a big pair with a good ace, something like A3KKss. I have a hard time finding any playable hands other than those UTG at a nine-handed tournament table. Tell me what hands I am missing. I’ve already said I’m not playing 2345 in that spot. What else?
I don’t like the idea of preflop hands ranges once you are good at poker. Your hand range should vary substantially situationally. Player makeup, tourney dynamics, table image etc change all the time so if you are playing the same hand ranges based on only one factor, like position, you have to be the leaving EV on the table.
I don’t know your results but I’d predict you tend to make it deep in tourneys but don’t hit the top few spots enough given your skill edge.
I always think about it this way. Everyone gets dealt the top 10% hands exactly 10% of the time, no matter how good you are. It’s just luck. Extra EV comes from being able to add the next 20 or 30% into your range in the right situation.
Are you talking live mtts?
What is the shortest stack that you are only jamming/folding?
I’m mostly talking live when you get a better feel for player reads and table flow.
I don’t deny the mathematical value of push fold when short or concerned with ICM.
I pretty much disagree with 90% of the poker advice clovis gives here. The wide range sb stuff is bad.
The recent post is bad. It basically assumes that a player has a gigantic edge over the field. But then if that is true, they don’t need advice.
I’m not trying to give advice. I’m just discussing strategy with someone who plays a very different style than I do.
I play a moderate lag style in general.
You can both have a huge skill edge and not be maximizing that edge.
I would also speculate that live play, short of the advent of webcam “live” online poker, is going to start getting considerably tougher. Underground games might hold their softness but the difference in skill between online and b&m has to be waning.
Depends on the level. Could be a lot of assumptions of rooms closing, casuals finding something else to do etc but who knows what happens in these kinds of markets.
Would you mind sharing what and where you play?
It is to some degree but there is still (or at least pre covid last time I played) a very wide gulf.
For example, I bet a guy a couple years ago who was a winner in a 2/5 game I play regularly that he couldn’t beat online stars 25c/50c over 10,000 hands. He got crushed. Obvious anecdote. Just an example.
At live $400-ish limit tournaments, the player pool is consistently too loose.
It’s reasonable to assume that I will never play a heads-up pot from UTG at a full table unless we are ITM or close and players are making tight folds to move up in payouts. This is especially true in split-pot games. If you’re not getting the pot HU, you need to tighten up. If we take an extreme example of a loose table where every hand is always five-handed or more to the flop, then you can mostly define what your hand range should look like UTG and not deviate very much from that without leaving money on the table.
We are also talking about limit tournaments where your implied odds aren’t as great compared to NL, so preflop creativity is not as valuable and technical precision is more important.
My tournament results suggest to me that my skill edge in live tournaments is magnified by saving bets and not going broke instead of pushing small edges to try and build a big stack.
*I’m well aware of how soft live games are.