Final 3rd of so of MTT's

[clynd99]

I"ve been focussing on a few MTT"s recently, mostly online and have found that I have a nervous twitch that is quite annoying in the last third, or possibly last quater of the tournaments.
(NB- I don"t play online MTT"s quite so regularly now, they take up lot of time and I have other things to focus on. I play quite a few sit-and-go"s so that I"m not commiting myself to 3 or 4 hours in front of the computer, and I have a bad relationship with cash games. I try to be selective on the MTT"s I play).
I have played 4 MTT"s over the Xmas period, all on the Crypto network, and all with buy-ins of more than £30. All four tournaments have seen me do the same thing at around about the same stage, with approx 20 or 30 runners left to the money (except one which saw me scrape into the money but fall on the first rung of the ladder).
To explain my predicament I will use the last tourney as an example, some of the information may not be absolutely accurate, but won"t be far off.

£50+£5 MTT with £9k GTD pool, approx 300 runners with 30 places paid, I think 1st place would have taken just over £3k. Starting stack 3,000chips, 15minute blinds.
We are well into the third hour of the tourney, and the field has been cut to about 60. I am in the top 5 of chip leaders with around about 23,000, blinds are currently 400/800/a100.
It is around here where I start to fall apart. I don"t know exactly where I"m going wrong but somehow I can"t seem to negotiate this stage of a tournament. I go from being in the top 5 or 10 in the field, being in a position where I could basically sit out until the money to being busted and sucking my thumb watching everyone else carry on without me.
Does this ring any bells with anyone because I"m finding it quite frustrating. I don"t know exactly where I"m going wrong but it"s as if all the skills which have got me into such a good position get thrown out of the window.
I seem to tighten up, even though the blinds are all relative to stack sizes and I have about 28 BB"s, to open raise 2,400 or so seems like a large chunk of my stack, so maybe the problem is psycological?
I don"t think it"s the problem but maybe I"m trying too hard to win pots at his stage and playing myself into trouble.
I"m aware that I need not to get into unnecessary confrontations with other chip leaders, but it seems to me that the guys with average stacks do more damage to me.
Should I be using my chips here as a weapon or a safety net?
If I am chip leader at my table should I open or narrow my raising or calling ranges? Should I be playing the same as I always had been?
How much should I be commiting to pots againt players with a similar stack to me?
Should I only play premium hands and then widen my range after the bubble?
Should I pick on short stacks or leave them to deal with each other?

This may seem like more of a rant than anything at the moment, but I"m genuinely concerned about my chip management and mindset at these late stages. I don"t think it"s tilt either, maybe it"s just inexperience?
Ironically I chopped a live tourney once for £400, one of only maybe a dozen times I"d actually played a live tourney, and I came out saying how the guys at the final table had been let down by their chip management. We went 4 handed with 3 places paid, and I was severley short-stacked. The other 3, with mountains of chips got involved with each other on almost every hand. Somehow I ended getting heads up with a massive defecit, evening the stacks and then chopping the cash.
Maybe I"m just better suited to playing a short stack?
How is best to approach these final stages of an MTT? Do I keep aggression levels up or coast to the final table and treat it as a sit-and-go?    

[noble1]

wowser , thats a lot of questions   i could answer some but i"d be up writing a book all night essentially lol lol

If you post specific hand histories along with reads etc etc in points of the mtts where you think you have made a mistake then i"d find it easier to answer,also if you have a hand replayer,load up your hand history and i"ll take a look at your play [and other APATers i"m sure] and see if i can spot anything that you could improve upon.

So some general questions for you [breaking your game/strategy/style down]

1.So the general strategy in the middle/late stages is to increasingly loosen the requirements for an opening raise and to tighten up the requirements for calling. The objective should be to win, on average, the blinds once per round imo. Each time you win the blinds you can, in effect, survive one further round of hands.... and each round of hands you survive [maintain your stack] which increases your chance of hitting a premium hand and an opportunity to double your stack.Do you do this clynd99 ??

2.Good opponents will be hard to beat [in theory opponents get tougher the higher the buy in] if you just sit there and wait for premium hands because they will notice this and not give you any action, unless they have strong holdings too. To beat very good opponents deception becomes necessary so you have to start playing a little more risky to mix up your play and keep them off balance -- like raising with a few more hands preflop. (This is why it is harder to beat big games, there is more gamble.) Do you do this clynd99 ??

3.Do you keep your reads flexible if you have an inflexible image in your mind of an opponent, then whenever he changes, your evaluation of him will be wrong,are your
opponents changing gears thus you get caught out clynd99 ??

4.If you are struggling to chip up at this stage? if so what i suggest you work on is how to win some pots that you may not be winning now; add a trick or two to your arsenal. 3betting light 4betting light , do you steal from utg utg+1 ? etc etc also try
to recognize when others are doing this to you.

5.Maybe you have applied a strategy for a number of sessions and you aren"t winning or so you think so after each session you should be picking apart your play to try and figure out what you did right and wrong, but especially after a losing session [history replayer]. There is variance in cards that can last a long time so even if you aren"t winning you could still be playing correctly. What is important is to be able to filter through the play and know that what you are doing is right.Volume may be the answer clynd99 ..

6.The ability to change gears is more important in tournament play than you think clynd99 .  [please see point 2]

7.So people generally will treat you as the same even when you switch your style!
when others recommend you change your pace, please remember to randomize it so your opponents can"t catch on and correctly predict when you vary your style. [goes with points 6+2]

hope this gets you thinking  

regards
noble

[clynd99]

Cheers Noble,
I didn"t want to post hand histories. It"s obvious that I"m misplaying hands and thats why all my chips are being lost, but what I"m saying is that it"s a regular occurance at the same stage of tournaments, I"m not misplaying the same hand over and over, it"s my general approach to these latter stages of tourneys where I"m falling short.

[noble1]

Ok i have had a think about your post and reply so i thought i"d give you a general idea of my thoughts on stack sizes.I still trust my instincts and reads and make moves but in the main mostly it depends on my stack size to blinds.[this may help you,it may not   it is after all a general guide i stick to ISH]

10bb or less
I look to open shove all in any 2 cards if 1st in,the later the position the better,if there is already been action then my shove range is a little tighter [depends what i think of villians range]
If the antes have kicked in then 15bb or less is where i start shoving..

14/15 to 20/22bb
The perfect size to re-steal shove all in with.
I tend not to open raise this size of stack if i cannot call a 3 bet,but i will open my range in lp and open raise if there weak/tight types to my left as long as they dont have a habit of 3 betting me  
At the higher stakes most players are aware that this is an ideal size to re-steal with,so some caution is needed but in the lower buy ins mostly the players are clueless regarding this so a fairly wide range is ok to steal with.[when i say re-steal i do mean with cards that you dont want a call with !!]

20/22 to 30bb
The most difficult size for me personally,to big to go all in with [not all situations though  ] so i tend to tighten my ep range but mp and lp i will still open raise a fairly wide range again this depends on the players to my left and how often they 3bet me.[my raise range is just a little tighter than my 30bb+ range]
If i am in the blinds for example and i hold 2 high un-paired cards [AQ for example]
and there is a lp raise 3x a play i like to make is to make it 8to12x then shove the flop [unless i hit a monster and i think villian will bet if i check  ]

30 to 40bb
I will open raise a lot,i will keep my 3 bets to a fairly tight range,the type of hands that can withstand a 4bet.If i am playing a low buy in mtt i will open raise 2 or 3 times per orbit as the players at these levels 3bet less.

40bb plus
Pretty much every play is available - 3bet ,4bet ,i use position and call ,i will play a super wide range if i so wish ,floating ,reverse floating and i can afford to fold hands etc etc.


Hope this helps you think about your stack size strategy,most of my thoughts here
are what i"ve learnt from good mtt players on P5"s and 2+2 so its nothing new but you will be surprised at how many players have no concept of this.So note players
who open raise at the 13 to 20bb range and who fold to re-raises [you can re-raise steal off these types when there effective stack is at this size again],also notice who open shoves 25bb+ to re-steal with [note bad player,no understanding of stack sizing] a lot of the time they will have marginal strong hands at best [trap these sort]

anyhows my typing fingers hurt,if you experiment i"m sure this will improve your out look on mtts.

regards
noble

[rubertoe]

Always a good read Noble1 -

There is just too much to trawl through on 2+2 and P5"s so it is always nice to read strategy threads in this forum!

I"ll have a look at my histories and see if i can find something to add!!

probably not!!!
(any chance of some coachimg Noble1? )

[Swinebag]

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