For the past week I’ve been playing the Bodog Poker Open series of tournaments. It’s good to see the smaller poker rooms making an effort to increase tournament traffic and do something to increase prize pool sizes. Up until yesterday I’d bombed out of every event despite the deep structure. Yesterday was event #4, $150 limit hold’em, a game I haven’t played since the 2007 WSOP.

Limit and no limit hold’em are to poker as Rosie O’Donnel and Jessica Alba are to sex appeal. For about a year during 2005 and 2006 limit was almost the only thing I played. That I’m still alive and possess the majority of my sanity is a true testament to my mental toughness. Still, I played the event because I’m a grinder and that’s what I do. It got something like 180 entrants with a first prize of $10,800.

Despite my limit game being awful, the games of those around me were considerably worse. I also found AA a ton and it held up every time. I ended up coming into the final table with a short stack after getting runner runnered at the final two tables for a major pot. I got things rolling for a while and it wasn’t long until we were 5 handed and I was tied for second. Unfortunately the blinds became enormous and I got involved in a huge pre flop pot with AK verse a guy who cold called a raise and then a 4 bet with AQo. The flop came A Q X and with over half my stack in the middle I got the rest in. The short stack on the table was also all in, so when we both busted I finished 4th for a little under $3,000. I guess things could be worse considering I never play the game.

Unfortunately for me day light savings is going into affect in the US. That means I have to pull my schedule back another hour to play the same tournament line up (which is the only realistic one available to me) and start my days at around 9:30am. So long late night social life. A month later it’ll be another hour, although at that point I may transfer over to more cash games for some deep stack practice leading up to my live poker tour.

Speaking of which, it would really be great if the APPT would go ahead and announce their schedule already. Or at least tell me when the first event is. It’s looking increasingly likely that Macau will be in May and therefore in conflict with the Party Poker Million cruise. I’m not giving hope that they pull it together in late April though. If there is an unavoidable conflict I guess I’d have to skip the cruise since Bondgirl is sponsored for the APPT. I could still do the Grand Prix de Paris then, depending roughly on when Macau finishes, but it seems probable. It’s a long way for one tournament, but I’d hate to go my whole life without being to give first hand examples of why Parisians are pretentious bastards everyone hates.

Meanwhile I’m still awaiting Full Tilts phone call which they said they were giving me three or four days ago about the writing content. Actually, they didn’t specify when they would call, just that they would, though I’m not sure why the large gap between the email and the call. No other site has so much as even sent a rejection email to what I emailed them, so it would appear that Tilt is the only site interested. Perhaps they went and did more research and decided a raving drunk who screams “I’M BOND18 BITCH!” at interview women was not someone they want to be associated with. Or perhaps they’re just a little busy. We’ll likely find out this upcoming week.

I also want to work on adding a few entries to the ‘Things it took me a while to learn’ series this week. I’ve brought Shaundeeb on as a guest writer for the next segment. It’s either going to take me weeks to edit and translate what he writes or I’m going to have to find Deebspellcheck and pay him to make Shaun’s butchered English legible. Still, I’m happy to have him working with me and I like the idea of bringing more and more guest writers on. It allows for a more diverse and thorough thought process, and affords me the chance to take credit for others work while I do less of it myself. Sweet deal if you ask me. Suckers.

I’ve been talking to a few players I respect lately who, for various reasons; be it playing an enormous volume that wore them out or running bad have started questioning how much they want to keep playing the game. One of them, SCTrojans, (who is one of the top players online and best tournament poker minds anywhere) told me he’s thinking of retiring fully except perhaps a few of the WSOP events. I can see how running bad or playing enormous volume can lead to burn out, but full on retirement? When you’ve got knowledge and talent like his, it almost seems like a waste. More equity for me!

I’ve never really thought about quitting and I hate taking vacations. The last time I took a full on vacation from poker I was 20 years old. I ended up playing 12 year olds on a cruise ship at $5 NL. The kids were thrilled to find out they were playing with a real professional who’d played the guys they’d seen on TV, but I sure as hell couldn’t justify taking 12 years old money. Conversely, I felt if I lost they would perhaps find the experienced cheapened. I decided to win a little then donate just about everything back to the nicest kid. I left up 50 cents and slept fine that night.

Taking a break seems especially distant when you’re running as incredible as I am. Not only that, but I really feel like I’m playing excellent poker. I won the UB $120 bounty today for $5,400 and got 2nd in the Stars nightly 50/50 for a bit under $7,500. I had a few other cashes and close calls, but that was it for final tables on the night. Yesterday I took 3rd in the Absolute $30 rebuys for about $2,000 and made a very deep run in the Stars Wednesday $320 but ended up busting at the final 3 tables for about $1,300. There were some really interesting hands from the day I’d like to put here. Some are only for my egos sake, and others might make good discussion.

The first hand comes from the final table of the UB $120 Bounty. The villain in question is ‘BluffmagCV’ better known as Chris Vaughn, the infamous Bluff editor of the Imper1um scandal. I had a feeling he knew who I was since he played extremely aggressive and stationy towards me, seemingly taking every opportunity to do something out of spite. I’m guessing this is a result of my calling him a ‘douchebag extraordinaire’ in the ‘Imper1um Investigation’ article and saying he ‘100% deserved to get fired from Bluff’ in NVG. Seeing as the ‘Imper1um Investigation’ became so widespread and popular that Imp put it on his own website, I’m guessing he read my comments.

During our play I had only 3 bet him once before, a shove with AK for about 16 BB’s. He had been open raising an absolute ton and I knew he was anticipating a 3 bet from me. I was also fully anticipating his 4 bet. Then the following happened:

Hand #51440597-44 at Thu801pm20KBounty-Final (No Limit tournament Hold'em)
Started at 07/Mar/08 00:38:54

basebaldy is at seat 2 with 51780.
muckthenuts is at seat 3 with 156500.
ateddybear is at seat 5 with 73880.
Dallas3333 is at seat 6 with 33575.
BluffMagCV is at seat 9 with 129265.
The button is at seat 9.

basebaldy posts ante (200).
muckthenuts posts ante (200).
ateddybear posts ante (200).
Dallas3333 posts ante (200).
BluffMagCV posts ante (200).
muckthenuts posts the small blind of 1200.
ateddybear posts the big blind of 2400.

basebaldy: -- --
muckthenuts: 9d As
ateddybear: -- --
Dallas3333: -- --
BluffMagCV: -- --

Pre-flop:

Dallas3333 folds. BluffMagCV raises to 7025.
basebaldy folds. muckthenuts re-raises to 21200.
ateddybear folds. BluffMagCV goes all-in for 129065.
muckthenuts calls.

Tournament all-in showdown -- players show:

muckthenuts shows 9d As.
BluffMagCV shows 8d Jd.


Flop (board: Kc 8s Tc):
(no action in this round)
Turn (board: Kc 8s Tc 6d):
(no action in this round)
River (board: Kc 8s Tc 6d Ah):
(no action in this round)
Showdown:

muckthenuts has 9d As Kc Tc Ah: a pair of aces.
BluffMagCV has 8d Jd Kc 8s Ah: a pair of eights.


Hand #51440597-44 Summary:

No rake is taken for this hand.
muckthenuts wins 261530 with a pair of aces.

It took me less than two seconds to call him. Thank God for that river. For what it’s worth, that pre flop call is incredibly awful 99.99% of the time. This was merely a result of how the game was going and the way he was playing against me the whole final table.

The second hand comes from the Full Tilt 30 rebuys tournament. We were fairly deep and the player on my right, Jcamby, is a top 5 ranked P5’er with a ton of success. He plays a pretty aggressive game and I felt like I’d finally found the perfect spot to make a play I’ve been waiting for months to pull:

Full Tilt Poker $22,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t400/t800 Blinds + t100 - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (SB): t27048
BB: t27955
UTG: t23193
UTG+1: t10544
MP1: t63423
MP2: t35322
CO: t25241
BTN: t33800

Pre Flop: Hero is SB with Q T
4 folds, CO raises to t2400, BTN raises to t6400, Hero raises to t26948 all in, 2 folds.

Unfortunately I later made a 3 bet with AK in late position in that tournament and the guy behind me cold 4 bet jammed. I was getting better than 2 to 1 on the call and despite not being an overly active player given the positions, my image, and the pot odds, I was forced to call. He had me in horrible shape with AA and I lost. I busted the next hand with AJs to 88.

The last hand is nothing but a fun hand from my second place finish in the 50/50. It’s pretty self-explanatory and totally awesome. The villain in the hand had AsQs, since it’s not listed in the HH:

Poker Stars $50+$5 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t600/t1200 Blinds - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (UTG+1): t37065
UTG+2: t11579
MP1: t46566
MP2: t14911
CO: t26896
BTN: t20557
SB: t32527
BB: t63690
UTG: t10525

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG+1 with A K
1 fold, Hero raises to t3600, 2 folds, MP2 calls t3600, 3 folds, BB calls t2400

Flop: (t12525) A J K (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t9000, MP2 raises to t11186 all in, BB folds, Hero calls t2186

Turn: (t34897) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t34897) Q (2 players - 1 is all in)

I can’t even remember the last time I made a royal flush online. Glad I was able to make something of it.

Meanwhile, Full Tilt shot me another email and said a supervisor would like to call me about the potential project. I’m highly anticipating talking with them and hopefully their interested in the whole of the content. Odds I say something really stupid and dealing breaking: 3 to 1.

I was glancing through NVG in 2+2 today, apparently in the mood to destroy my brain cells. For those who don’t know, NVG is mostly a cesspool of morons discussing which pro they think has the worst hair cut or how much it would cost to sleep with Brandi Hawbacker. There was an actual worthwhile thread today though about Shaniac’s latest blog entry and I went and looked over his entry. I’ve glanced over Shane’s blog before but never in great detail. I met Shane during the Aussie Millions and he’s a very nice guy, despite his somewhat controversial image for being an integrity watch dog in an online world mostly run amok by stoned 19 year olds with questionable morals. Not that I have anything against 19 year olds or stoned people. I shot Shaniac a PM on 2+2 and asked him if he would be willing to give me some constructive criticism about my writing, especially considering what I’m going to undertake. Here’s his message back to me:

A few things I noticed in no particular order:

1) Make sure you are always using the right word, and if you're not sure about the meaning or usage of a word, find a simpler word. In fact, going with the simpler will usually make the writing better. Maybe not the best example, but you used "censure" (which means to harshly criticize) when you meant "censor."

2) Less is more. If you can express the same thought in 5 words as opposed to 50 words, it's generally preferable. Concise writing has a better chance of succeeding and keeping your audience's attention than overcomplicated sentences and sentiments do.

My father once showed me an instructional video on writing in which an entire paragraph was displayed on the screen. An invisible hand took an eraser to the paragraph, removing and adding words (editing the statement) until all that was left was one word, which expressed the same thing as the formerly long paragraph.

Almost my entire process consists of editing and revising, and I think that applies to most of the good writers I know. Also, I am fairly discriminating with my choice of details. Usually, there is a lot of stuff that I'd like to include in my entry, but I leave it out in order to help the writing flow better. Learning how to compromise and sacrifice is a big part of my process.

3) Pay attention to your "template" a little bit more, especially the size of your paragraphs, which are often dauntingly long and should be broken down into two or three segments.

Also, it's a minor point, but to avoid making the page look jumbled I think you should make sure to put a space between your writing and the presentation of the stacks:

If this:

"The player in this hand was well known online player ‘yellowsub’. In my analysis I’ll be paraphrasing a post djk123 made in the thread, so he also deserves some credit. The tournament is the Full tilt $500+50 Sunday Million. We are without reads.
MP2: 4908
Hero: 4940
Hero holds Ah Qh on the CO."

Looked like this:

"The player in this hand was well known online player ‘yellowsub’. In my analysis I’ll be paraphrasing a post djk123 made in the thread, so he also deserves some credit. The tournament is the Full tilt $500+50 Sunday Million. We are without reads.

MP2: 4908
Hero: 4940
Hero holds Ah Qh on the CO."

it would make the whole thing a lot easier to read.

4) Avoid the temptation to capitalize or misspell words (like "VASTLY" or like "pleeeeeaaaaase") when trying to add emphasis. The power of the words should speak for itself. Italics are OK occasionally. An exclamation point used sparingly is OK (not great), but a series of exclamation points (!!!!!) is a mortal sin.

Also, not a huge deal, but I'd brush up on correct comma usage. I spotted a couple mistakes, mostly related to dependent/independent clause. Not a big deal, but I think prefect punctuation is very useful in the process of clarifying your thoughts.

Obviously, it doesn't matter much when you're posting on the internet, or in a variety of written situations these days, but I think that good, old-fashioned punctuation and grammar (not that you can't use slang and be creative, etc.) does a lot to add credibility and longevity to your writing.

5) This sentence sums up some of the problems with your writing:

"Not quite as much as Anton Chigurh would prefer I bet, but losing a $12,000 flip still feels pretty terrible. I didn’t per say ‘lose’ $12,000, which of course would be much worse, but it seems similar."

First of all, "per say" is "per se," from the Latin phrase that translates to "by itself." Getting that wrong reflects badly on you as an author. Secondly, the word "bet" in this sentence sort of confuses your point: What's going on, a bet? A coinflip? I also don't know what you mean when you say "Anton Chigurfh would prefer" in this context, but if you were going to write those words out, you would need to insert a comma between "prefer" and "I." Also, as a blogger, you might want to put Anton Chigurh as a hyperlink, because I'm not sure the reference would be common enough knowledge.

If I were your editor and had to re-write the sentence, it would look something like:

"Probably not as much as you would have lost against Anton Sigurgh, but $12K still seems like a lot. Although I didn't exactly 'lose twelve thousand dollars,' which would be much worse, it feels similar."

I took out "of course" and some other superfluous words, I switched "feels" and "seems," and I tried to convey the same sentiment in a clearer, more straightforward way. (Of course, you might think I failed miserably and that my version sucks.)

In any case, the volume of your output is impressive, as is your willingness and ability to discuss and analyze strategic elements of the game. I could never do what you're doing, so take my criticisms with a grain of salt.

In general, my advice would be to flirt/experiment with the idea of expressing these same deep concepts, but more efficiently and by using fewer examples and less words. Make sure they are as tight as possible--that will give your writing more room to breath and ultimately give you a stronger ability to express yourself.

I hope these comments were helpful, and I'd be happy to offer more (or to **** off) depending on how you liked 'em.

Shane

PS: This is a great resource http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

I really appreciate Shane taking his time to help me improve my work, and I told him if there’s ever anything else to add I’d appreciate his thoughts. I told him the only thing I disagreed with was using example hands, since I think they are perhaps the best way of outlining a concept in a more applicable manner when it comes to strategy talk.

There were a few things though I forgot to ask him about, so I’ll direct him to this entry later. I’d also like the reader’s thoughts so by all means make some comments if you have any ways for me to improve.

1. Shane mentions not using things like ‘VASTLY’ or ‘pleeeeeeease’ for emphasis, but what about for someone’s dialogue? I’ve always liked writing dialogue as close as possible to how I heard it, and that means huge capitol letters and long run on words. Thoughts on keeping those in only during dialogue writing?

2. I’ve always been very bad at going over my work and editing it. The truth is I normally just throw things together on the fly, especially when traveling. Somtiems I’m so excited to get things up on the forums and give people the story of how it all happened that I don’t even reread it once before posting. How much time do quality writers spend revising what they’ve written?

3. Wow, I look fucking stupid when I get per se wrong huh?

4. I’m looking to find a balance between my personal, exaggerated, over the top style and traditionally constructed and quality writing. Any thoughts on finding a balance?

All right that’s all for tonight. I just went back and edited this blog entry. My God does that make a difference in quality.

I won my second triple crown today. The triple crown consists of winning 3 tournaments on 3 different sites with a prize pool over $10,000 and 100 players or more. I won another some time ago (about 9 months perhaps) after numerous close calls and lots of effort. This time around I happened to simply get lucky in two tournaments on one day, then made some effort towards winning third. I had no idea it’d be such a substantial win.

I won the Stars 10pm (Central) 20k guaranteed $109 tournament tonight, which normally gets around 400 guys, 432 tonight specifically. First was $9,310 and as long as I’m shamelessly bragging I made the final table of the Stars $22 rebuys but busted out 8th.

The totals for the triple crown look like:
Mar 05, 2008: Stars $109 for $9310
Feb 28, 2008: Full Tilt $109 rebuys for $35,890
Feb 28, 2008: UB $30 rebuys for $5130.

I’ve been putting in a ton of volume lately and it feels good to get such a solid return. Meanwhile I thought further about what I wrote yesterday. Kyle (Edward Dantes) IM’d me with some words of advice as my writing attempts to gain greater reach. He, like David Huber at Pocketfives, advised just about the total removal of profanity in material meant to reach a larger audience. He pointed out Hunter S. Thompsons work as an example for way to be both creatively insulting without vulgar. I read over Thompsons eulogy of Richard M. Nixon, and as Kyle said the eulogy is as about as scathing and offensive as can be, without the kind of language that prevents it from being publishable. Man, Thompson REALLY hated Nixon. Either way, both Kyle and David are right. Being entirely uncompromising to make slight changes is unreasonable. If the heart of the content is being butchered I’d feel uncomfortable, but I can live with edits and adjustments. As long as I get to compare people I don’t like to skat porn. Not that I have anything against Fischman, I’ve never met the guy and when we did play, it wasn’t me sucked out on when restealing 54s with absolutely zero fold equity.

Meanwhile I received news today as devastating as any I can remember, Brett Favre has retired from the NFL. Whatever you want to say about Favre being overrated, overly aggressive, or downright foolish for picking a time to quit when his last throw was an interception and his returning team is a force, you have to respect the man that made the game as fun to watch as any in memory. In all my years of watching the Pack there’s never been anyone else at the helm. To me, he defines everything enthralling about the game of football. Having never watched the Pack without Favre, I wonder if I’ll really feel the same thing next year, when no matter the quality of the team, something will feel off. Here’s hoping he changes his mind. I’m already missing watching him play.

Calling them Sundays here seems a little ‘I’m American and America is the center of the world!!!’ish but for the majority of people in the online world the biggest tournament day of the week is known as Sunday. This week there was bonus action, a $1500, 2 million dollar guaranteed tournament on ipoker network with massive overlay and terrible players. There was one catch though, it was at 7am (well two, there were no antes either.) I did not enjoy myself.

Even though I was responsible and got to bed at a reasonable hour the night before (which took it’s fair share of melatonin and discipline) a few hours into my Sunday I started feeling groggy and terrible. Then, I just started playing bad. Over the course of the day I made at least five truly awful mistakes. Just flat out terribly played hands. It didn’t help that I went super deep in the Tilt $150 with 750 entrants then lost a flip with 15 left. When I finished with my day sometime in the mid afternoon (I realized the state I was in and stopped registering for new stuff early) I went over to the couch and fell into what can only be described as a coma. When Bondgirl woke me up three hours later I initially told her to “Go away. Go away, pleeeeease let me sleep”
“But I’m almost at the final table of the 30 rebuys”
“You’ll be fine. I need sleep.”

She was too persistent though. It was only fair, I had started staking her for UB tournaments since she’d had a really bad month on Tilt/Stars and I have the magical ability to print money on UB. In my groggy state I lay on the couch and tried to give her the best advice I could in my impaired state (no, I don’t tell her what to do, if I get something wrong then I have to hear about it for hours.) An hour or so later she’d won the tournament and made my disastrous Sunday suddenly profitable.

Meanwhile I finally got a response from a poker site in regards to my ‘Around the World in 90 Days’ idea. Full Tilt emailed to say they have a sort of blogging page of their own and would likely be interested in the content and wondering what I want in compensation. I emailed back asking more specifically what their looking for out of me. I realized there is one fairly serious catch to working with a poker site while doing this project; considering my writing style and sense of humor it’s possible they may seriously want to edit or censure my work. Seeing as I am not a professional writer who needs the income to survive, I have the privilege of being uncompromising if I choose so. Say for example it is Full Tilt who picks up my work, and at some point in a tournament I have a hand against a pro which they sponsor, for the sake of example let’s say Scott Fischman who I have seen play terrible in the past, and he plays some hand God awful against me and sucks out. Later on in my blog I may wish to describe Scott as “A complete fucking mongoloid whose poker skill is the rough equivalent of a drunken mechanic trying to be a barber and has about as much class as skat porn.” This is almost certainly at a massive conflict of interest with Full Tilt when distributing my work. So how much would it cost for someone who doesn’t need the money to censor a project that’s very important to them? I don’t know, but I can’t think it’s cheap.

That is of course the catch and the beauty of being a professional poker player. We don’t rely on anyone else, no team work is required, and there’s no such thing as business manners, office politics, and unless you’re talking about cheating not little concern about saving face. We do what we want, when we want, how we want. We do so, because there are no consequences and nobody to stop us from doing so.

That’s not to say that people in the working world are better or more mature than we are. Most people who have worked in the business world long enough can regale you with stories about coworkers screwing each other over, bosses taking credit for their work, or office politics reaching a state of 1984esque paranoia. I imagine many out there are highly jealous of our lifestyle, and were it feasible, would be doing the same. Yes yes, I know, those with families and real responsibilities wouldn’t. It’s an inevitably self satisfying lifestyle not made for the family man.

I’ve massively derailed myself here though. The point is, I’m only going to give my content to a site if
A. They give an awesome offer with censorship.
B. They give me an acceptable offer without censorship.

So we’ll see what happens.

Recently the online sites have been adding more and more high stakes tournaments to their schedules. Four sites now have a weekly $1000 tournament, Tilt has added a couple 100 rebuys, UB has added a nightly $150, and this is on top of the slew of $100+ tournaments (which we’ll define as higher stakes for the sake of discussion) that already exist. There are a number of adjustments to consider when moving up the buy in ladder which we’ll go over.

First of all, peoples aggression ranges are much wider at higher stakes than they are at low/mid. Take shoving ranges on a 10 BB stack with antes for example. If it folds to a player on the CO in the 100 rebuys, their range is going to be very wide here, and in some situations any two cards. Now take a tournament like the nightly 50/50 on Stars or Tilt. I think the average player is often only shoving A high, pairs, any two broadway, and a few suited connectors. Some may even end up folding the weaker A’s and broadways. As always you need to watch the players on your right to get a good idea of where they’re at, but as a rule expect that as you move up in stakes peoples shoving ranges get wider.

Also, peoples opening ranges get wider but that is fairly obvious. A larger difference though, is that peoples 3 betting ranges get a lot wider and 3 bets are a lot more frequent. For example, in a 50/50 dollar tournament If I open MP2 and the button 3 bets me at 30 BB’s effective I give the average player pretty damn tight range, though again it depends on the player. Still, very regularly you’ll get players whose 3 bet range is simply QQ+/AK. Meanwhile, in a tournament like the 100r the 3 bet range here can be closer to AQ+/99+, again depending on the player and the existing dynamics. Also, players at higher buy ins make fewer mistakes in regards to 3 bets. Many have a good idea what kind of stacks they should shove with, which they should flat with, which they should 3 bet as a go and go, and which they should 3 bet and evaluate post flop with. At the lower/mid buy in tournaments you more often see guys who do very obvious things such as min 3 bet their strongest hands, 4 or 5X 3 bet the hands they don’t really know how to play (TT-QQ, AK) and make shoves for highly inappropriate amounts (either jamming on a resteal with no fold equity because they don’t understand pot odds or shoving a massive stack in relation to your bet, say 10-15X your original raise.) There are still plenty of players at the higher limits who make significant errors in 3 bet situations, but the errors are often to a smaller degree than at the lower stakes, and often erring on the side of aggression which makes your life harder.

Because people are more passive at lower stakes I tend to play a more aggressive game. If I get on tables where the players on my left seem incapable of 3 betting without having a real hand I’ll start tiny raising (2.3-2.5X) a very wide range of hands in LP. Even if these types of players end up defending their BB (which many will since they don’t understand position) they’ll often play too passive and sloppy post flop. When I play in higher stakes and tougher tournaments, I tend to play a more TAG style since my opponents will make far fewer mistakes against me pre and post flop and their aggression can sometimes be manipulated into spewing into my tighter style of play. Of course you should never go to far with this and become a nit (and some players play LAGish at the highest stakes very well) and you still need to be able to pick spots to suddenly and violently open up your range in order to keep thinking players off balance. Along this line, I also flat call preflop a bit wider in weaker tournaments because my opponents will make larger mistakes post, give me more free cards, and I’ll get squeezed behind me less often.

Another major difference you’ll see when moving up in stakes are the concepts of raising for information and pot control. Let’s take an example hand and see how it can (and often will) play out differently depending on stakes.
Example 1: It is the first level of a Stars tournament with a 3000 starting bank at the 10/20 level. The players in the hand not overly familiar with each other. The button in the hand holds 99.
Preflop: It folds to UTG+1 who raises to 70, it folds to the button who calls, the blinds fold.
Flop: 2 5 7 rainbow
UTG+1 bets out 120.
Now, in a Stars $1000 tournament I would expect the button to flat call here close to 100% of the time. The button knows if he raises 99 there are zero hands he can get value out of from another thinking player and he is essentially turning his hand into a bluff. Therefore he elects to call, control the pot size, use his position, and evaluate what happens on the turn. One other quick adjustment in regards to open raising comes with the ability to break the stack size rule. Say for example I’m in a tournament full of very weak players who never 3 bet without having a big hand. If it’s folded to me on the CO with A9s I’ll 2.4X it intending to fold to a reraise. Meanwhile in something like the 100r, I would simply shove this hand.

The same hand in the Stars 50/50 may play out that UTG+1 bets out 120 and the button now raises to 360. The button is failing to think about the big picture and sees the situation at it’s most basic; “The flop is 7 high, I have a pair of nines, I’ve probably got the best hand therefore I should raise and see where I am.” Then if they get reraised they sit there tanking not sure what to do and wondering how they got in this gross spot. For the most part, raising this board with 99 at this stack depth is a mistake across the board, but every so often you’ll get players who stack off so insanely wide it becomes correct. Still, this is a rare occurrence.

The next thing to consider about moving up in stakes is bubble play. Both on the final table and on the cash bubble, the higher you get and against the better of opponents the less players will nit it up around bubble situations and give you folds. There will always be some players who are out of their league in a tournament who have happened to survive to the point that this is relevant, but the bubble in a 50/50 is vastly different to a bubble in the 100r. For example, in a bubble situation where I have a decent stack (it doesn’t need to be huge) in a 50/50 I’ll be open raising an enormous amount of hands for very small raises (2.3-2.5X) since I expect players to 3 bet and flat call me with a very tight range. Meanwhile in a 100r I make almost zero adjustment to my game plan unless I am in procession of a massive stack or happen to be on a table with unexpectedly weak players. Even still I don’t open it up to nearly the level I would in a 50/50 tournament. In a 50/50 it’s fairly rare to see someone else on the table really looking to manipulate a bubble situation unless they have a ton of chips, but in the higher limits most players are willing to go ahead and 3 bet all in light to prevent their getting run over.

Another key adjustment I make between stakes is adjusting how much I play for deception vs obvious value. Against higher stakes and thinking players you need to be aware that they are more observant and watching for bet sizing patterns. They also know that you know exactly what your stack size allows for and doing something outside the norm throws up red flags.
Example: It’s at the 200/400 with 50 ante in a Stars tournament. You have 9,600 chips in the small blind and hold AA. The button has 15,000.
Preflop: It folds around to the button who open raises to 1,100.
Now, in a 100r I am shoving this hand, the same as I would shove my entire 3 betting range. Thinking players know if I do something like make it 3,000 (which obviously pot commits me) that I likely have a huge hand (although these days some players are making it 3000 in this spot with a hand that’s not necessarily dying for action like say, AT in order to look strong, but that’s a whole other article) and that I’d normally shove my lesser hands. So instead of giving them that information I make the most deceptive play (that is, deceptive because there is simply nothing to read into, my raise size can mean AT, 55, KQs, or AA.) I also know that very few strong/thinking players would think of flatting here for 1/3rd of effective stacks to see if they get a good flop or otherwise fold to my inevitable flop shove. Meanwhile, in the 50/50 I would almost always make more a fancy/cute play by flat calling (which basically nobody does in the 100r in the SB at these stack sizes) or 3 betting an amount that makes my opponent perhaps thinking about taking a flop, or, ever so rarely, 4 bet a hand they think has some fold equity.

There are many situations like this at lower stakes tournaments where you can do things that become obvious at higher stakes in order to get value. You should slow play more often in spots where your opponent will fail to realize you have become pot committed and would never call off so much of your stack without such a strong holding. The higher you get the and better of players you run into, the more you should make your actions look similar with your whole range to prevent them from being able to hand read you accurately.

Lastly, keep in mind that players at lower limits adjust slower (or at times, are simply unwilling to adjust) compared to higher stakes thinking players. Meta game in the tougher tournaments is much more relevant and history and reads become highly integral to being able to make a correct assessment of someone’s range. Meanwhile, in lower stakes players may fail to adjust by opening their range up against your aggressive play. They are much less likely to take a pattern you have and exploit you for it, since they simply don’t possess the knowledge of how to react to a variety of situations. Their style is more sedentary. Meanwhile, if you keep the same patterns up against thinking players you will inevitably get exploited and they will find ways to outplay you or only give you the absolute minimum of value with your big hands. Pay attention to the way the table reacts to you. The ‘X-factor’ of skilled tournament play against tough opponents is understanding meta game.

Alright, that’s all I have for now. I hope this has helped, and always, if you have questions just ask.