GREETINGS EVERYONE. I HAVE BEEN IN SPADE CLUB ABOUT 2 OR 3 MONTHS NOW AND SINCE BEING IN I HAVE HAD A HORRIBLE TIME WITH MY MTT GAME. I WON A RED TOKEN TAKING 15TH PLACE IN THE 30K DOUBLE QUALIFIER AND WON 5 DOLLARS IN A CASH GAME TAKING LIKE 18TH PLACE. I HAVE MADE 1 FINAL TABLE IN THE MEMBERSHIP FREEROLL ONE TIME. IT SEEMS LIKE I AM DOING SOMETHING RIGHT BUT I THINK MY PROBLEM IS THE FACT THAT WHENEVER I HAVE A GOOD STARTING HAND PREFLOP AND SOMEONE BETS INTO ME ALL IN PREFLOP I HAVE TO DECIDE WHETHER MY HAND IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR A CALL. WHEN I THINK IT IS GOOD ENOUGH I TEND TO LOSE MY CHIPS. SOMETIMES CRIPPLING ME INTO A DOWNWARD SPIRAL UNTIL FINALLY IM PUT OUT OF COMMISSION. A LOT OF TIMES I SEEN PEOPLE GO ALL IN WITH A 93OS OR A K2 OR OTHER DONK HANDS AND WIN!! IF I TRY TO CHANGE MY GAME PLAYING THESE TYPES OF HANDS I USUALLY LOSE SO I DONT PLAY THEM. MY PRINCIPLE IS IF MY HAND IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO CALL A RE-RAISE PREFLOP I USUALLY FOLD IT. I HAVE A LOT OF WEAKNESSES WHEN I GET INTO THESE TOURNEYMENTS AND COULD USE SOME HELP HERE TO GET MY GAME BETTER. I WANT TO IMPROVE TO THE POINT WHERE I CAN CONSISTENTLY (AT LEAST 2X A MONTH) MAKE IT TO THE MONEY TO COVER SOME SUBSCRIPTION COSTS. CAN ANYONE HELP? MAYBE PLAY ME HEADS UP TO SEE HOW I PLAY AND THEN TRAIN ME TO BE A BETTER ONLINE PLAYER?

First off...racing even with the best hand is a roll of the dice (you said you have good hands and are forced all in). This weekend I played SNG's and most of the time when I lost its because I put faith in a hand like AA or AK to race. It is even harder on SC when there is a better chance you hand has to hold multiway. The problem with racing is you rarelly have decent odds anyway...which means you gain little but risk lots.

I noticed a post were you mentioned pot control when players are chasing or you are. Try this. Practise your small ball. Opponents position and timing are more important than preflop hands. Look for passive players and try to double your stack early....either by hitting some hands or using position. AVOID the loose aggresive players...they aren't going to fold. Looks for spots that offer good odds...if you stick to this you will slowly gain.

Mid stage you can play aggresively when you do have hands. Come bubble time, pick up those chips again...small ball position.

Practise the "M" zones mentioned in PkHrGd's post. It will help you go further by making easy decisions and using varying stacks to their best potential...... and you won't be calling of chips.

If you can build a decent stack by midway in the tokens (around 12-15k) You should be able to coast to the money stealing the odd pot against the passive players. That will pay you fees. You will need to turn it up 2 notches if you want to go deeper.

Will see what else we can do to help.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2009 05:29PM by jontm.

thanks for your reply. i did find some of the tactical stuff useful and got further in the MTT last night playing "SNGs DONKEYKONG STYLE". lost a couple big pots to some weaker players that usually fold a big better like myself. this time they called cause they were in the red zone and each player doubled up on me. left me with 11000 chips. i played my hand right and all but i just got sucked out on both times. it happens. anyways cause at 11000 chips im in the red zone and need to do something so i got pocket qs and went all in preflop trying to gain some chips. well the chip leader at the table called and had AK and beat me. right move wrong time cause he was the big blind!! anyways i took 104th out of 1496 players which is actually good for me playing online. anyways thanks for the advice and ill keep reading and playing.