Problems with deepstack play

[scottyjule]

Hey guys,
i am playing regularly sit´n goes on fulltilt poker and I do have a big edge, exploiting the stacks between 30-50 dollars.
First of all I must admit that I have severe problems playing cashgames.
I decided that cashgames are apparently too deep for me (100 BB-250 BB) and that plaing 50BB sitn goes which goes down to 15 BB or even less is my cup of tea.

But I am also playing the ftops quite regularly and also already had one big pay day with about 12 k win.

So few weaks ago I was pplaying the FTOPS Main Event (600 + 40 $):

At my immediate right , a guy was sitting with a yellow jersey illustrating that he already won a FTOPS event, so I knew that he will be a tricky opponent.

This guy , let s call him REGULAR, had shown one hand where he opened 58 suited in early postion and won a decent pot.

Now to the crucial hand:

After approxamitely half an hour with blinds 15/30

REGULAR (9000 chips)opens utg +1 auf 90,
Now it s my turn holing(7500 in chips) Ah Ad --> Reraise 270
Regular calls

Flop comes:
357 with 2 hearts

REGULAR checks , I bet 333 into 595 pot.
REGULAR re-raises to 999.

At that point I thought he could have a set, but hands like 56, 75 suited or pairs from 88-JJ are also possible.

I thought that I could never fold right here because it would be way to anxious to fold here. But i also found it not reasonable to raise to about 2 k.

Si called his raise .

The turn was the Queen of heart, giving me the nut flush draw to go with my overpair.

The pot was now about 2600 .

He almost instant shoves for about 6000 my remaining chipstack.

I ended up folding, because I still had 200 BB left if I folded.

Furthermore I thought he could be playing a set like that .
With a turned flush I think he wouldn´t bet that big.

But there s one thing which doesn´t sit right with me....

Let s say he doesnt play his range but just mine..

He knows that it is very hard to call all in with one pair and so many hands out there which beat holdings like pocket aces.

Do you think he could be bluffing in this spot , without a history between us two???

I am actually happy with that quite easy fold but just the fact that he is tricky player makes me think I possibly got screwed.

[PlsTilt]

For starters: FTOPS winners are not necessarily tricky players.

To be honest with you, very few tournament players are tricky. If they are aggressive at all, often that aggression stops after the cbet .
Best assumption to make is that ppl don't bluff at all when faced with a weird spot.


To be even more honest with you, I think you shouldn't be playing $640 MTT's.

Answering your question:
Yes he could be bluffing (more interesting question: does he bluff often enough to justify calling off and overshove).
Given how you post I expect you hardly ever 3bet bluff vs EP with a bit deeper stacks, so villain will be able to read your hand like a book. His only problem is, will you fold KK/AA and didn't you just spike the set queens .


Edit: Don't mean to sound douchy, but really MTT players have their edge when the blinds go below 40bb. Their strategies are mainly built around preflop decisions considering stacksizes, position and player characteristics.
Then there is another aspect, MTT players generally value their survival very highly. They don't want to monkey off chips if the alternative is to fold and continue with "healthy" stack.

These and other factors cause MTT players to generally have very low bluffing frequencies.
And fwiw the comment on the 640$ :
- BR wise doesn't seem very wise to invest 640 in an MTT when your main game is 30-50$ SNG (unless you sold pieces)
- Your thought process seems to be a little limited and might have a few serious leaks. Of course playing events like the FTOPS ME filled with fish can be interesting, but I think you should stick with your main game and watch a bunch of vids


@comment below:
Don't underestimate variance and don't overestimate your own skills.
(c.f. 92% of the Swedish car drives place themselves in the upper 50% of car drivers)
It's good to stay humble and open-minded, for example about your best result, it's good result obviously, but also realise that it covers a very large part of your online profits, what if you didn't win one of the flips you won... would that make you a worse player? .
Also realise that it is a fundamental flaw to say that satellite tickets allow a big entry. The best way to play these fields is to sell action.

with regards to improving:

It would never hurt to play heads up, that way you are forced to read hands, think about opponents ranges and play more streets.

[scottyjule]

I honestly think that I can compete quite well in this big MTTs .
I do think my strength comes when the antes come into play.

I make good money with the sit´n goes and I play a few sattelites to big events and i ve been quite successful in qualifying. I would never invest 600 dollars...

By the way, I had my best result in the 300 $ Ftops Event with a 12th place finish and 12k.

So i don´t think that the players are too good for me to be honest , I just know that I struggle during the early stages of an event.

Are there any other advices to improve my deep stack play apart from playing cashgames and watch the vids???

[JamesMa]

Id fold too unless I was pretty sure the guy was bluffing. In tournaments a lot of players dont get super tricky like plstilt mentioned, especially early on. As it gets deeper, I think ppl tend to make more moves. If you think about tournaments and the people playing them, you should be able to figure out why this is.

Anyways, folding leaves you with a good stack and you're not getting odds to call if he has a set/flush so I think its a pretty standard fold regardless of what kind of avatar he has.

I think playing cash games are the best way to get good at deep poker. Building a stack early on is essential for doing well in tournament poker otherwise ur just essentially flipping as a slight favourite

[klamsauce]

whatever villain has here, he played it bad bad bad.