Agressiveness vs Patience

[FastRocky]

In my opinion, agressiveness is useless at the first levels of a tourney. Most of the players will call with mediocre hands, so bluffing is not beneficial. As you get deeper on a tourney, the ppl left will be more prepared to fold their hand and protect their chips. I say the highest the blinds are, the more agressive.

[busto4life]

I totally agree. In the first few levels of freezout tournament I would try to play tigh style and try to win big pots with small investment. Maybe try to get in cheap with speculative hands like 76suited before the flop and get something nice on flop and bust someones big pocket pair or flopped top pair.
I think in rebuy tournament during rebuy period you can be bit more loose and agressive in the beginning, at least if you have a nice bankroll, because you can always make a rebuy if you lose the current stack

The further you go in a poker tournament the more important it is to become agressive. When the blinds are big compared to the stack sized you can just try to steal the blinds by making small preflop raises and adding the wins to your stack.

However it is important not to be too agressive if you feel like you might get trapped. For example many people try to limp(just call) from early position with big pocket pairs and hope that someone makes big raise so that they can just push allin with their hand.

One one thing to notice that its much easier to win the blinds into your stack if you make the raise from late position(maybe button or couple seats before it) then if you raise from early position. When I started out in poker I thought it was better to raise from early position, because would think you have big pair, but it doesnt seem to work like that.

[tatisaito]

Just play solid game on early stages.
Play hands like SC, Axs, Kxs in position.
When the blinds are high you have to play more agressive

[Mateus]

i think that can play agressive in any time of the tourny
but so tight in the firsts levels
agressive is diferente of tight
i prefer fold KQ pre flop than limping it

[purebluff]

yeah in the first blind levels you shuld be very very tight .. KQis a fold in early tourney phases ...
in later situations if you got less BB than 20 you should think about raising KQ in mid pos

[kampfkloloss]

it is always a question , which kind of tournaments you play if you play the small ones till 20$ I would play always very tight and aggresive , but if i notice I got a tight table and those can be bullied around I dont might doing it.

[SoShil]

I think it depends on your chip stack. The higher your stack is in comparison to the blinds, the more passive you can play (which means that you should play less cards; only the good ones).

I do it like this:

If my Chipstack is <24 BigBlinds I play very passive
Between 24 and 13 BigBlinds I start to play some more cards, do some all-ins, try stealraises and blindsteals.
13 or less bigblinds: I go All-In as fast as possible.

In a Tournament it is not important that you kick out people or something like thats...its better to try to stay "alive" as long as you can to get in the money.

so long,

SoShil

[Sheval]

In my opinion, agressiveness is useless at the first levels of a tourney. Most of the players will call with mediocre hands, so bluffing is not beneficial. As you get deeper on a tourney, the ppl left will be more prepared to fold their hand and protect their chips. I say the highest the blinds are, the more agressive.
Generally it's OK like that. I agree. But it's still better to change your strategy from time to time even on earlier stages of the tournament, especially after you have played with the same players 5 or more hands.

Agressiveness is reasonable and usually successfull if you feel yourself right with it. Sometimes you just have unsuitable humour to be agressive.

[SoShil]

it doesn`t meather if your agressive or your patience if you do not have the cards to play like that!If you ask me it all about luck!

Poker is in a way a game where good luck is important - but further more you can learn how to play poker with being long-term successful.
Just look around a little bit in these Forums and try to win a few times with playing money. Then you can start to play with some money..first learn...then win :)

SoSHil

[freimaurer]

Hi,

This happens to me every now and then: I reach the final table, but have played tighter than Harringtons boxers - and find myself shortstacked.

Eventually you'll come up on the round where the next time you have to post BB you're all-in. During these final hands (from the one where you have the button to the one when the BB reaches you again) how would you play it?

I'm thinking two things:

1. Wait for a good/decent/suited hand and go all-in preflop?
2. Wait for a hand where there's been a raise and a call/reraise (to get the most out of the all-in if I get lucky) before moving in (with any hand)?

Maybe you have another tip that can help me (I know..."don't play so tight"....)?

Thanks for taking the time!
Cheers

[freimaurer]

What do you do when you are card dead in a tournament? It never seems to fail: I'm doing really well in a tournament and I have a healthy chip stack. The last time, I was in a live tournament, I had 6,000 in chips, the antes were up to $50 and the blinds were 150/300. There were still 160 people left in the tournament and it paid down to 27.
Practically every hand someone was raising the big blind by 3x or more. And I'm card dead. I got no pocket pairs or even anything on Howard's Pre-flop strategy chart. I didn't even have a face card! So what do I do?
What I did do is wait for a good hand to push with and I didn't get one until I got down to 1600 in chips. I got an A-3 off suit. I was in middle position and no one opened yet. I went all in. One woman who was in the big blind called because she only had 175 more in chips. Only one other player called because he was chip leader and was looking to get two players out.
The chip leader had K-9 off-suit and the other player had 3-8 off-suit, so I'm ahead. A King came out on the flop and I didn't improve so I was out.
What could I have done differently? I can't believe that the pros just fold, fold, fold their way to a slow tournament death. So what do pros do when they are card dead?

[rockboi84]

Yes, it is useless to raise and bluff in early levels as there is too many donks (calling-station) out there. Just wait for the donks to be aggresive to you.

I always limp with AK in early level of any tour and fold to crazy raise cause i does not want to gamble so early.

[AceAndyAce]

I always play very tight, and hope to catch some nice cards in the early stage of the tourney, so i can watch and again, play only the best hands actually. When i'm at the last 4/5, the play will get more aggressive, because people don't want to come in 4th or 5th in a tourney.

[Rage260]

i think in first few blinds is better to play only top 10...it isnt good to bluff much...then later when the blinds are bigger u can do some blindsteals :)

[14kovo474]

i agree... at the early stages play tight, just very good starting hands... in the middle stage start to be more aggressive, but not much ... and in the late stage be aggressive, but only when ur in position

[Logitech]

In usually play only freezeouts or big rebuy tourneys.

My strategy is to wait a big hand and if blinds eat your stack, you have a bad luck.
The first over 99--> pocket pair or AQ, AK gives a oppoturnity to go all-in and double your stack. After that you can watch more flops and hit and raise your stack! :)

[Zischeq]

In da tournaments. At the start da best way is to be very aggressive then if you win enough. Just control the table, if you are chip leader of table. I like controlling table...

[Proky]

It is very sensitive and depends on personality of the player, however it is very complicated TO play with patience after you lost nice pot with AA or KK and you are naturally under pressure because in SNG tournaments the average stack goes higher and higher and I would even say you have to play aggresive, there is no conlusion, but as I said it depends on personality...

I saw in TV one poker player, who made final table on WPT with about 400 all-ins in one day of tournament... :D

[greg456]

I still play some freerolls, so it's obvious that it's better to play agressive to build some stack. In buy-in freezeouts I prefer patience, in deep stacks I'm trying to play a bit more aggressive :)

[ivanNOIQ]

At the beginning of the tournament, i prefer to start playing tight so i can observe my opponents.At the middle stage i am playing more aggressive because thats the time i am trying to build my stack.If i reach my aim ( to make big stack ) i can continue with my agg style, but if i am short or average stack on the bubble, i am playing only strong hands.

[chankie]

What you want to do is play a little aggressive in a lot of smaller pots with few opponents so that way you can gather up chips to gamble with later on. Let's say the last 10 hands you gained 1500 chips and then later on someone pushes all in for 1500 you hold AQ and he flips over AK well yeah your dominated but that 1500 you just got well it's sorta like a freeroll to knock the person out :) and if you win that too now you have 4500 :).

Play more aggressive when ante's kick in!

[Mago666]

the better way to win a tourney is be agressive on the middle of the tourney and passive on the forst hands ;)

[21dasdas]

i think we have to be agressive everytime in a tourney, people will see you like a crazy man and will call you with mediocre hands everytime thinking they are strong enough to make some bad call on you when you have a real big hand

[BadWolfOne]

Just choose your own stile, every pro will say aggressive is the way, but to be agressive and succesfull you have to have a lot of poker knowlege and a very good read on the players, an agresive player can win with any 2 cards by outmanuvering his oponents

[EgertEST]

I can play both. On beginning I play good cards very agressive and when I have big chip load then I be very thight:)

[TexasFoldem]

You got to be aggressive AND patience.... who cares if the blinds arent that high.
Once people see you raising 500 with 40/80 blinds over and over (only with good hands)

people will start to believe ur bluffing. TRYY it

[Artwork]

i use to play tight at start of tournament but when i have bigger stack i start playing bad hands :X it's my weakness. Then im short stack again or busted

[misused]

I like to play pretty tight in beginning but aggressive on good hands, later on in tourney Itry to steal blinds if im seated close to the blinds