Tourney Advice - small stack, long blinds

JimmyHo

I'm planning on playing the Seneca Octoberfest Friday tournament which has a starting stack of 5,000 and 30 minute blinds. Any advice on playing tournaments where the blind levels are a decent length but the starting stack is average? Is it better to still be more aggressive in the first two levels and try and steal blinds early, on the assumption that most players will be waiting for decent cards? Or should you be more patient and wait for decent cards in the first couple levels (25/50, 50/100) while your M is still quite large and to get a better feel for the players at the table? I find I seem to burn through chips when I play in casino based tournaments for some reason as you still get a lot of initial raises of more than 6 x the BB in the first couple of levels.

As most tournaments these days seem to be based on 20 minute (or lower) blind increments, how would the 30 minute blind level change your general approach to the tournament?

Wetts1012

We can talk about this on Friday before the tournament. I have played several of Senecas better structured tournaments (even starting with 4K), and found there is plenty of room for patience.

Tight is def. better at this place for 1 primary reason. The early play is terrible. This consists of about 50% of the field. In their daily tournaments there isnt really alot of room to wait around so your forced to play TPTK as the nuts.

Alot of the regulars dont convert their styles to account for the better structure - and still think TPTK is the nuts. It is relatively easy to pick these out and exploit them in the first 2-3 blind levels.

Also - I believe it starts @ 25/25, then 25/50, 50/100 - unless the structures have changed.

BigChrisEl

From the few that I have played I found the players bet the strength of their hands. Big pair = big bet. Small pair = small bet.

I doubled up at the 50-100 level when I had Kings and was in the BB. A player later raised to 600 and I smooth called expecting him to continuation bet the flop and check/raise him. Flop came, I checked and he pushed 5K. I called and he had Queens and I doubled up.

JimmyHo

thanks, some very useful tips. am I on the right forum?? If you want to chat before hand Wetts, Buddy can point me out. I played one tourney at Seneca last year and was taken off a few flops with nice size continuation bets. Ended up losing my stack with KK vs A10 when an ace hit on the river. I recall that a few players were very aggressive early on with huge pre-flop raises of 10x BB in the first level. They usually were able to win the pot with nice size continuation bets and not have to show any cards.

Hopefully 25/25 is the first blind level as that leaves more room for getting to know the table. I would expect the blind levels increase substancially at some point.