My basic strategy at my Saturday night home game has been "Fold to the Final Table". This was due to my TD duties, as well as the structure being a little fast compared to our other home tournaments. Once I get to the Final Table, I can do my thing, and I cash more often then not.
And for a two table tournament, or even 25 players, "Folding to the Final Table" was working OK for me. But now that our games are getting between 35-45 players, my basic strategy just doesn't work. I realized this last week when I didn't win a single pot, and was blinded off by Level 6 (300/600).
I've also noticed something else lately. I've won nine home tournaments in the last two years. The largest field was only 27 players.
I would consider myself an Above Average to Good tourney player. The one gear that I don't have is Chip Accumulator. I have no clue how to build a big stack without getting run over by the deck.
So tonight's crowd of 35 players seemed like a good time to start experimenting on some stuff. I really changed up my playing style in the five levels before the first break. I'm not going into details about what I did differently, since some of you fine readers are playing with me on Saturdays. But overall, I was pleased with the results. I had a goal of 15k at the first break. I ended up with 12125 + the 3k AddOn that I hadn't used yet. I did get a little lucky in a hand against Malcolm, but the rest of my chips were gotten with the new stuff.
So with some chips, I kept doing some of those things after the break, just not as often. And it went well. At the 2nd break, I had 22k with 14 players left. After the break, players were knocked out fairly quickly, and I made it to the Final Table with about the same size stack, which was a little under average.
At the Final Table, I didn't get run over with the deck, so I just hung around and did my thing. I ended up in 5th place for a min cash of $70 which is only my second cash and second Final Table of this season of 11 games. At the 2500/5000 level, I had just under 30k in the BB. I looked down at KTo and shoved against the SB (RR Dave) who limp in with AA. It's a bit of a cooler for me, but it was a standard shove with just 6 Big Blinds left.
1 comment:
As always it was fun playing with you. But having you at the final table is always un-nerving. LOL.. You are hard to play against. Which of course a compliment. Thanks for all you do Greg.
Post a Comment