I've been knocked out of three big field multis in 7th or 8th place this week. I'm seeing a Grand Canyon size hole in my game and am looking for thoughts.
You don't get to that point without playing solid and getting a break or two. But it seems that so much turns on one lucky hit or miss (EX: knockout this morning was my 66 against 10J, who was leading out and calling my raises from the flop with nothing but an open ender, but hit his J on river). Do you just figure that it's in the poker gods hands, try to get in with the best of it and if you lose, tough luck? Or play nothing but ultrapremiums, pay your blinds and antes, and wait for the one big hit?
For reference sake, I started out 8th at final, got to third, leaked back to fourth, but still had plenty of chips when this happened and ended up 7th.
this is the biggest hole in my game too. I seem to make the final table regularly, but fall apart once there. I don't know if I'm just getting cold cards or what. Maybe Kamrann can provide us some insight on this problem.
you might consider reading Cloutier's book on NL Tournament play with those low to mid pocket pairs... the blue book with red letters (i never can remember the EXACT name of it, even tho it's my poker bible and i've read it 2 dozen times) Man it sure filled in many gaps in my game, and a weekly review of it helps keep me sharp. GL
Would simply playing a lot of S&G's simulate final table situations? I think I read that somewhere.
The thing with those low pocket pairs is you can never really feel strong with them unless you flop a set, so when he leads out and bets on the flop and you reraise him and he calls, let it go and wait for a better hand. You have to remember that at best with 66 you more than likely looking at only a 50% chance of winning that hand because you have to put your opponent on overcards, if he didnt fold to the reraise you have to assume your beat. Very nice play reraising in that spot though, just bad timing.
I'm still thinking that hand through. It's a dilemma we all face, when we put a read on someone that's accurate, but still puts us in an awkward posture.
I think in the long run, I should just lay down the low-medium pockets unless I am on the button and comfortable that I can get out cheap when the set misses.
Analysing and improving final table play is difficult to do for the simple reason that, no matter how good you are, you won't be there very often in relation to the amount of poker you actually play. As Subfallen points out, one way to get in extra practice is to play single table tourneys. This will only help so much though. When you reach the final table of a big tourney, the blinds will likely be large causing the play to be very different than that at the beginning of a STT. Also, there will likely be large variations in the stack sizes of the remaining players, which also changes the game.
Also, again for the reason that noone gets to play all that much at final tables, it can be difficult to determine if you're doing something wrong or just running cold. Since you'll make finals infrequently in general, and often wont play all that many hands when you get there (even if you win, things tend to happen pretty fast due to the blinds), its quite possible that you may just have hit a bad run of luck at the times you've made the finals, and if thats the case there's nothing you could have done to finish higher.
Assuming its not just bad running, I think strategy depends heavily on what the blinds are like relative to stack sizes when you reach the final. It's hard to put numbers on it, you just need to get a feel for how patient you should be based on the number of hands/rounds you can last before the blinds reduce your stack to a point where you have to make a move.
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But it seems that so much turns on one lucky hit or miss
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This can be true Bruce, in the cases where the blinds are very big, so if you get some sort of hand you have to move all-in, then maybe someone else is also short and does the same - often it ends up being a 50-50 and this can determine who goes out 9th and who goes on to win. However, in the example you gave, there was betting on each round, which strongly suggests the blinds were not so big and you had plenty more time to wait for a better opportunity. A medium pocket pair that misses the flop is only going to get you into trouble. I think you probably had time to wait for a more certain position to put your chips in.
If the blinds are very big then you need to be very aggressive. Don't be afraid to push all-in with absolutely nothing if you think you have a chance of taking the blinds. Remember that even if you have 23o and someone called you with AK you're only about a 3:7 underdog, and if you do catch you've doubled up. The absolute worst thing you can do is to fold and fold until you barely have enough to cover the big blind, since then you're leaving it entirely up to luck since you dont have enough to make anyone fold. As a rough estimate, I'd say that if you're seeing no cards at all, and you have about 4x the BB, you should move all-in sometime during that round before the blinds get round to you. Just pick a spot and do it. Otherwise you post a BB and SB, and you're down to 2.5x BB, leaving you with one round to find a big hand, which you'll need since noones likely to fold their BB to such a small raise.
I can't really give you guys any more specific advice without seeing particular situations. If you want to post a hand history of a final table any time then I'd be happy to have a look through it.
I mostly play SNG and I am very succesful with them. Being a good SNG does not make you a good tournament player, trust me on this
When it comes to simulating end-game conditions in tournaments, I really like the 2-table SNGs at PokerStars.
If you make the final table you're playing against others who did too, instead of just 9 random opponents. So they're a little tougher.
Also, with the 2-table setup you get to practice other key end-game situations, like playing at short-handed tables.
