I won a seat to a tournament in a freeroll (online). But, since there are several tourneys that feed into this one AND since those tournaments are freerolls that attract thousands of players each, the field for this event is likely to be between 3000 and 8000. Any advice for playing NL Texas Hold 'Em against such a staggeringly large field? Blinds go up fairly gradually, doubling about every 45 minutes. Play is likely to be much better than that of the qualifying freerolls, since only the top 2% of those tourney participants get a seat. Of course, that’s kind of like competing against the best athletes in first grade, so I expect a lot of questionable play, too.
Anyone have any experience with this? Suggestions? Anecdotes? Advice (other than, “ask this sooner than 15 hours before the tournament and not on New Year’s Eve”)?
One thing about any freeroll is that, since there is no money on the line, players are less afraid of losing. People will push with questionable holdings, and call with even more questionable holdings. Even good players will do questionable things.
Basically, a lot of people are going to playing with the mindset that they either want to get a huge early advantage, or just bust out early so they don’t have to waste 4 hours on a slow death. Depending on how you value your time, that may or may not be a good idea for how you want to play.
Treat the early game a little like a weak-loose low limit cash game. You want to stay out of trouble, but you also want to cultivate opportunities to double up. Find cheap flops wherever you can.
With such a huge field, don’t worry about your own image. You are going to bounce from table to table too fast for anyone to notice that you’re showing a tight, or aggressive, or lunatic, or whatever persona. Deception plays just aren’t very worthwhile early on.
The sad cold fact: No matter how well you play, you will probably lose. There are simply too many times when you have to risk all your (or almost all) your chips, and even if you’re an 85% favorite each time, the odds say you’re most likely going to bust out anyway. So be sure to have a good rant about how the game is rigged handy.
Play very tight for the first hour or so until most of the total maniacs have busted out. Play only AA, KK, QQ, and AK and make a big raise with them, all in is fine. If somebody has already gone all in, fold AK … with that hand, you want to be the all in raiser, not the caller. On the button you can add pairs down to 99. In the blinds, add pairs down to 66 and AQ and suited Aces down to ATs.
If you play a small pair and don’t flop a set and there are two higher cards on the board, just check and fold. Don’t bluff at all. Don’t go broke with one pair.
When you get to the point where your stack is too short to post the blinds & antes 10 times, start to loosen up a little, playing pairs down to 66, AT or better, and suited connectors like 54s in middle position. On the button and in the blinds, add all pairs, A7 or better, any suited Ace, KJ and KTs.
Basically, if you are the first in, raise. Unless you have a very good hand, don’t call many raises unless you are on the button, where you can call a small raise and hope to get a good flop AND get to see what the other players do before you have to commit more chips to the pot.
Eww. Busted in the first hour. No big story to tell. Solid raises pre-flop that sometimes hit and paid, sometimes missed. Then I flop a good top pair and get shut out with an overpair (that didn’t raise pflop). Not sure what I could have done differently, but super-tight for a little longer (90 mins? gradually loosening up towards hour 3, for a more conventional hand-selection strategy?), might have been better. Gonna play again next week, still have another ticket. Wondering whether to play NLH or PLO.
Turble (as usual) gives good advice. I am extremely inexperienced at PLO so I will not attempt to give a list of starting hands or strategies for that game, but I will say that it is a higher variance game than NLH. This means that you are relatively more likely to either bust out or build a decent stack early. If it were me, I would use the opportunity to get some PLO experience - it’s free, after all, and I’m the type of player who either wants to be in with a good chance, or bust out straightaway - I don’t want to sit around for ages just trying to cash out in the hundreds. This, of course, is partly why I do not have the temprament to be a successful poker player :).
On the other hand, if you have never played PLO before, or very little of it, it may be a waste of your time, as you will soon be caught out with the second or third nut hand up against the nuts.