Highstakes MTT coach - Ask me anything about tournament play

[MTT Database Review]

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?

In theory you should fold around 15 % of the time. In some tough ICM spots like final table or bubble with a big stack on BB, it might be higher, even 50 %, but sometimes when you are the big stack it can also be zero. The main action is just a limp, raises are used a bit less, especially deepstacked. Anb obviously shallower there will be lot of openjams.

I would often fold even less than 15 %, because people generally play pretty bad on BB, mainly folding too much, so I can get them to fold more preflop but also postflop.

Extremely shallow around 10bb it might be a minraise, then like 2,3x 2,5x.. around 20bb standard is around 3bb and eventually deeperstacked the standard size is between 3,5-4x.


Couple of examples here:

 

[Poker_Mike]

In general I am not a fan of limping the SB in Battle of the Blinds.

My reason is - I am not offering the BB a chance to fold preflop. And, the BB gets a chance to flop a good hand even with his junk.

The main action is just a limp, raises are used a bit less, especially deepstacked. Anb obviously shallower there will be lot of openjams.

In live events - whenever I limp the SB - if the BB is a knowledgeable player they then shove on me preflop. So I have stopped doing that.

Extremely shallow around 10bb it might be a minraise, then like 2,3x 2,5x.. around 20bb standard is around 3bb and eventually deeperstacked the standard size is between 3,5-4x.

Now you talk about reasonable raises. When considering these standard raises I always ask myself - what does the BB think I am communicating to him about my hand with the amount I am raising.

Is the real question whether or not I want the BB to fold or if I want to keep him on the hook?

I appreciate your perspective.

 

[MTT Database Review]

Massive congratulations to Roman Hrabec, winner of the Triton Main Event for $4,330,000 USD! And of course a happy returning client of MTT Database Review.

 

[Poker Orifice]

Can you tell us a bit about the discovering of BOTS in The Venom? (wtg btw!)

 

[Matt_Burns88]

Hello, I was wondering if you could give some advice on implementing things that we learn during study/training into our playing. I seem to really struggle with this. Take pre-flop ranges for example. I study a specific position or stack size, I drill those spots to a decent degree of accuracy (90+% in most cases), but when I come to actually playing again, I revert back to the same old way I always have (too tight). I there a process you recommend?

 

[Atararo14]

Hello, after analyzing sharkscopes of different players I noticed that the ITM rate is not very important, because there are very winning players with an ITM rate of 20% and others less winning with a rate between 25 and 30%

Can I please have an explanation and if possible an analysis of this indicator?

 

[MTT Database Review]

Can you tell us a bit about the discovering of BOTS in The Venom? (wtg btw!)

Small interview here, might do part 2 sometime soon.

Exclusive: ACR Venom ‘bot detective’ speaks to PokerOrg

PokerOrg speaks to the man who alerted ACR Poker to the bots running deep in the big 2024 Venom tournament.

www.poker.org

Hello, after analyzing sharkscopes of different players I noticed that the ITM rate is not very important, because there are very winning players with an ITM rate of 20% and others less winning with a rate between 25 and 30%

Can I please have an explanation and if possible an analysis of this indicator?

Depends on sites and formats, some sites tend to have more top heavy structures paying maybe 12 % players, while others go more for like 18 %. Potentially some site might have problems tracking re-entries correctly. And of course make sure you have a filter for MTT only, because in something like spin n go (3way jackpots) average ITM will of course be 33 %.
Overall ITM % is not really useful for any analysis. If you want to assess your own skill level, then just get a tracker like hand2note, pokertracker or holdem manager and see your evBB/100h winrate in a large sample, at least 50k hands.

 

[Atararo14]

Small interview here, might do part 2 sometime soon.

Exclusive: ACR Venom ‘bot detective’ speaks to PokerOrg

PokerOrg speaks to the man who alerted ACR Poker to the bots running deep in the big 2024 Venom tournament.

www.poker.org

Depends on sites and formats, some sites tend to have more top heavy structures paying maybe 12 % players, while others go more for like 18 %. Potentially some site might have problems tracking re-entries correctly. And of course make sure you have a filter for MTT only, because in something like spin n go (3way jackpots) average ITM will of course be 33 %.
Overall ITM % is not really useful for any analysis. If you want to assess your own skill level, then just get a tracker like hand2note, pokertracker or holdem manager and see your evBB/100h winrate in a large sample, at least 50k hands.

Thank you for the clarification. I will pay attention to the parameters you mentioned.