Highstakes MTT coach - Ask me anything about tournament play

[MTT Database Review]

Hello everyone,

Small introduction: My name is Vojtech (Vojta for short) and I am coaching under the name MTT Database Reviews for about 2 years. At the moment charging $300 per hour (custom recorded videos). Playing as LlKE A G6 on pokerstars.

As my website name suggest - I review databases. So instead of going over few random hands or hand history from a single tournament deeprun, I look at last several month of client's play, often 50-200k hands and I search for the most common and expensive leaks in their play, looking at all the frequencies, sizings, ranges etc. with thousands of my custom stats. I work with players of all stakes, from microstakes players who want to get better quickly to top regs who play even $10k online tournaments (or $100k live High Rollers). Many of my clients are coaches themselves, I coach for some stables etc. Additionally, I work with population data and identify common leaks of opponents based on the hands used (which obviously vary across stakes and sites), so I have a pretty good idea of how to deviate from GTO in certain spots.

If you want more info, here is my website: https://www.mttdatabasereview.com/

I am creating this thread to provide a place where you can ask me anything about tournaments and studying (only NLHE though, I'm clueless with 4 cards )

 

[Debi]

Thanks for posting this Vojtech!

Members - Even though he is a high stakes players - he is willing to answer questions about low stakes and general tournament play.

 

[MTT Database Review]

I've also recently got chatGPT subscription, so here is a capybara that just won a poker tournament!

 

[SpanRmonka]

Hi Vojta, thanks for coming over to Cardschat and being willing to give us all the benefit of your experience.

I have a question to start us off here.

I was wondering if, via your databases and analysis, you have worked out the most common/most expensive leaks in, small winning/break even, microstakes players?

I'm assuming this will cover a good proportion of the members here.
If so could you please list maybe the Top 3/5 and with a short explanation of what to do to combat these. Appreciate this will be simplified and generalised, but hopefully a good starting point.

Thanks very much
Ian

 

[MTT Database Review]

Well its going to be a boring start, but... preflop ranges. Make sure you are opening enough, make sure you got some idea about flats and 3bets. Make sure you are not too tight blind versus blind.
Don't be afraid of GTO. You need to start with it before you start understanding any exploits. You cannot skip this. Lot of beginners think that on micro/lowstakes you should not look at GTO at all because its only for highstakes players. Wrong. Without looking at preflop charts or some postflop sims, you will never properly understand WHY you should play certain way.
Don't focus too much on small amount of info from your hud. Focus on how that situation should be played in theory (or against an average player on your stakes). Only if its hard decision you can consider deviating based on your hud. Often I see people creating threads about a hand and they say lot of things like "This player already called 3 times against my raise and ..." - NOT IMPORTANT. Or "I have 150 hands on him and his cbet is X %". Almost no value in that. Especially because having stat for any cbet is not useful at all, because for example vs BB you should cbet over 80 % of the time but against a flatter only around 35 %. And almost all low stakes players cbet less against BB but more against flatters, so putting it in a single stat is not useful for anything.

The most popular study tool for winning players is definitely GTO Wizard. It is obviously paid, with several tiers, the top one being little bit over $100/month, but there is a free tier that allows you to browse through chip EV preflop ranges. Thats very useful for beginners, because those are pretty high quality ranges available for free. No need to pay any course. Plus you can play 10 hands a day in a postflop trainer too.
You can also get DTO. Similar type of tool, also several paid tiers but it has a free version too. Btw if you ever decide to buy a higher tier of DTO, you can use this code for a discount: G6DTO10
And one more tool that has a free tier is GTO Base . I am not using that much myself lately, but it has even some postflop browsing available for free unlike GTO Wizard, so can be useful if you want to check out how you played a certain hand.

In all of these tools you will traing based on GTO. Which is usually much more effective than watching some training videos. Obviously in the beginning you will not understand why solver does something, but thats what you have poker forums for to ask about it.

 

[Bird173]

I have a question about a somewhat specific spot defending bb against CO or Button. Assume 25bb and 40bb. Approaching bubble but not quite there.

What types of boards do we find a check raise on?

Also if stack sizes are reversed how does this affect us.

Also if it’s final table bubble instead of regular how does that change things

I know that’s a lot but I am eager to learn and bb check raise seems like low hanging fruit I’m just not yet applying the concept properly. Lol either I’m doing it wrong or I just keep running into it.

Much gratitude

 

[MTT Database Review]

That is actually pretty complicated question, because most people don't even bother studying postflop ICM. Right now even GTO Wizard doesn't have any postflop ICM stuff (but I think there is a high chance something will be added in next 6 months).
Best kind of flops for BB should still be small paired ones, because you have the obvious trips advantage. But you will definitely have to be much less thin with your value. Same way that your preflop 3bets or 3bet shoves also wouldn't be very thin in ICM spots.
Even DTO doesn't have anything approaching the bubble, just some final table spots, so here are just few random ones from one of the final tables to have at least some sort of idea:

 

[MTT Database Review]

And here something with BB being actually the larger stack. The most important thing here is that BB actually donks quite a lot even on flops that might surprise you. It is because the IP player would otherwise check back a lot since he is covered and has to be very careful. So I am showing you just one random flop for x/raise against either small or big cbet. And then agg reports for the most donked flops in this spot as a 50bb chipleader against a 30bb BTN. For example 975 is donking whole range.

 

[Misanthrop]

I had quite a few Training hands the last days where I was wondering why I was wrong the scenarios were always quite similiar:

I had a lower Hand like A6 or K7 (always offsuit), I had 100bb, and the other players also. It was always 9 or 8 player table and I had one minraise and 1-3 callers. I thought that I am invested already with 1BB and that calling with those hands would make sense because of the pot odds. However, GTO always said I was 100% wrong.

It only said it was correct to call with some offsuit connectors like 45, or even J9 suited etc...

Is there something I am missing? I had the situations on GTO wizard and GTO Base.

 

[Misanthrop]

I forgot to mention that I was always sitting in the big blind (thats why I was invested already)

 

[MTT Database Review]

Yeah that is pretty normal. A6o or K7o is good against one opponent but when it is multiway, especially 4+ players, it is really bad because your A or K is dominated all the time. You need hands that are able to win agaisnt several other players and a bad top pair will not be enough.

You can see example of it here. In the multiway spot it is bad to defend any small offsuit ace. A5o is losing 0,18bb, A6o 0,28bb while we started to defend 53o which was a fold vs single open.

 

[Bird173]

Did I make a mistake here?

This is my bust out hand in a bounty builder, $7.50 hyper pko on STARs. I got fourth place.

So I’m short stack on the button with pocket 3’s and 10 big blinds. To my left is SB with 22 big blinds. And BB with 29big blinds and the guy under the gun who folded has 12.

Now I shipped it thinking any pair is good to shove here. Afterwords I couldn’t help that nagging feeling that with ICM and the other stack only having two more bb than me. Maybe I should’ve held out and just thrown them in the muck.

 

[MTT Database Review]

Probably correct jam. In PKO spots like these its important to also look at how big bounties the players have. With a huge bounty (and therefore low fold equity) you might want to wait for slightly better hand.
Here just a quick example of some 10bb (and one 12bb) BTN ranges in 4 players left PKO (with 200 runners). All of these GTOW PKO sims are simplified by just assuming that larger stacks have equally larger bounties. But obviously in real game that could be different and sometimes the shortstack will have the largest bounty.

 

[Rosylly]

How to beat micros? Like ABI 3? What's the best strategy for freerolls and satellites.

Aprecciate your time !

 

[seeyouthru]

hand: https://vimeo.com/906946239?share=copy#t=0

So middle stages of 9$ tourney, Villian1 Limps from Hj, hero(153bb) decides to open, V2(81bb) Coldcalls from bb. As i have a flush draw iand bdsd i decide to put a cbet and v2 from bb puts in a x-r. V2 from bb is a extremely straightforward passive player and will only be doing this with very high equity hands on the flop. villian range here is QQ+,33,55. V1 calls and i am not sure that much about V1s range here. I decide to call. on the turn V2 fires 88% pot bet, V1 folds and i have a decision to make, either to call or fold and i dont have any fold equity against villian as i am damn sure he isnt bluffing so shoving for remaining chips is absurd move. Against villians percieved range i have 25.3% equity and calculating pot odds i need around 46% equity to make this call profitable but the spr is only 0.53 here. what do you think?

 

[MTT Database Review]

How to beat micros? Like ABI 3? What's the best strategy for freerolls and satellites.

Aprecciate your time !

Those questions are way too general. You might aswell ask "how to win in poker?". There are no easy anwers that make you win immediately.
Just put some effort into studying, learn what to open, 3bet, flat, how to play blind versus blind, look at some sims in common postflop spots like BTN vs BB.

 

[Rosylly]

Those questions are way too general. You might aswell ask "how to win in poker?". There are no easy anwers that make you win immediately.
Just put some effort into studying, learn what to open, 3bet, flat, how to play blind versus blind, look at some sims in common postflop spots like BTN vs BB.

Thank you, next time i will ask something more specific.

But i want to ask u discipline related question. What's is the normal % of final tables in MTT at different ABIs. In a field of let's say 800-1200 players. I suppose having 1 final table in 50 tournaments like that is very good?

And ITM?

I suppose that Final Tables are much more important than ITM in most tournaments, and it's better to risk to be able to play more final tables than play tighter, be ITM more often, but have less final tables and being blinded out.

 

[MTT Database Review]

hand: https://vimeo.com/906946239?share=copy#t=0

So middle stages of 9$ tourney, Villian1 Limps from Hj, hero(153bb) decides to open, V2(81bb) Coldcalls from bb. As i have a flush draw iand bdsd i decide to put a cbet and v2 from bb puts in a x-r. V2 from bb is a extremely straightforward passive player and will only be doing this with very high equity hands on the flop. villian range here is QQ+,33,55. V1 calls and i am not sure that much about V1s range here. I decide to call. on the turn V2 fires 88% pot bet, V1 folds and i have a decision to make, either to call or fold and i dont have any fold equity against villian as i am damn sure he isnt bluffing so shoving for remaining chips is absurd move. Against villians percieved range i have 25.3% equity and calculating pot odds i need around 46% equity to make this call profitable but the spr is only 0.53 here. what do you think?

Can't view the video without Vimeo account.

Thank you, next time i will ask something more specific.

But i want to ask u discipline related question. What's is the normal % of final tables in MTT at different ABIs. In a field of let's say 800-1200 players. I suppose having 1 final table in 50 tournaments like that is very good?

And ITM?

I suppose that Final Tables are much more important than ITM in most tournaments, and it's better to risk to be able to play more final tables than play tighter, be ITM more often, but have less final tables and being blinded out.

Well if its 8max tournament with 8 players on FT and there are 800 players, then obviously on average you get a FT every 100 tournaments. The better you are compared to the field, the more FTs you get, similar like your total ROI. Same thing with ITM. Which is very much dependent on what sites/tournaments you are playing. Sometimes there is 10 % people ITM, sometimes its 16 %.

But all of these metrics (of which average ROI would be probably most accurate anyway) need huge samples of thousands of tournaments. If you want to have a good idea about your skill level compared to your opponents, your best choice is looking at your EV bb/100h winrate in some tracker like Hand2note, Poker Tracker, Holdem Manager etc. Ideally you want something like 100k hand histories (similar amount is what I prefer when doing database reviews), but even 50k should be pretty decent. If your EV winrate is around 5bb/100 hands then you are pretty much where you should be, probably can expect something like 5-25 % ROI based on different field sizes and blind structures. If you are winning 10bb+ then you should consider playing higher stakes and probably have expected ROI 30 % +. With low winrates around 1-2bb you are still winning a little bit, maybe barely beating rake, but you can expect huge swings.

 

[Rosylly]

Can't view the video without Vimeo account.


Well if its 8max tournament with 8 players on FT and there are 800 players, then obviously on average you get a FT every 100 tournaments. The better you are compared to the field, the more FTs you get, similar like your total ROI. Same thing with ITM. Which is very much dependent on what sites/tournaments you are playing. Sometimes there is 10 % people ITM, sometimes its 16 %.

But all of these metrics (of which average ROI would be probably most accurate anyway) need huge samples of thousands of tournaments. If you want to have a good idea about your skill level compared to your opponents, your best choice is looking at your EV bb/100h winrate in some tracker like Hand2note, Poker Tracker, Holdem Manager etc. Ideally you want something like 100k hand histories (similar amount is what I prefer when doing database reviews), but even 50k should be pretty decent. If your EV winrate is around 5bb/100 hands then you are pretty much where you should be, probably can expect something like 5-25 % ROI based on different field sizes and blind structures. If you are winning 10bb+ then you should consider playing higher stakes and probably have expected ROI 30 % +. With low winrates around 1-2bb you are still winning a little bit, maybe barely beating rake, but you can expect huge swings.

Thank you for the answer !

 

[amitmanchanda]

I do fairly okay in live tournament, but I am extremely poor in online tournaments as I lose my temperament to shitty beats. Any advice?

 

[MTT Database Review]

btw if anyone plays MTTs on ACR, I just made a video on how to exploit the bots there. (While ACR did ban lot of them, there are still lot of them active, even today there are many playing.) Enjoy and go crush some bots!

 

[UmSoPlayer]

I was unsure about the action... I opted for a 3bet, here in this case it's just about the pre-flop I'm still focused on studying the pre-flop

Thank you in advance, I love you all

 

[shanest]

Hey Vojta, thanks for doing this AMA!
I'm curious about the most surprising or unexpected leak you've ever discovered when reviewing a player's database.
Also, how do you approach adjusting strategy based on population data in tournaments? Looking forward to your insights!

 

[MTT Database Review]

I was unsure about the action... I opted for a 3bet, here in this case it's just about the pre-flop I'm still focused on studying the pre-flop

Thank you in advance, I love you all

This is a preflop charts for similar situation. Usually it is just a call, could be 3bet too. If we 3bet, we are stacking off. But be aware that in that case our opponent can either go for shove, which never has AA or KK in his range, because he goes for non-allin 4bet there. And with non-allin 4bets he should have some bluffs too. On lower stakes it is very likely that just calling will be better option.

 

[Poker_Mike]

Hi Vojta, thank you for the thread on tournaments.

Blind vs blind....it folds around to me in the SB - do you ever give the BB a walk?

Do you raise a standard amount here from the SB?