Low stake tournament strategy

I play in two low stake MTT's weekly. Both are five dollar buy-in with $4 rebuys up to an hour before the tournaments end.

It's difficult to bluff effectively in these tourneys. Once in a while you can do it, but because it is low stakes, even pushing all-in is likely to be met by several callers and of course something like a 4 times blinds raise is likely to be called by everyone.

Bluffing becomes a little more possible after buy-ins end, but there is still the mater of low stakes to contend with: because it is small money, there are almost always callers even then.

My strategy for these games has been to play tight, avoid rebuys and then push hard in the last half hour. That works somewhat and I am ahead overall, but not by much.

Other players don't seem to mind two or three rebuys. Of course that affects their overall profit, but I wonder whether it matters long term. Do they win more often because they are playing more loosely and risking rebuys?

I'm going to pick two players and see if I can remember to track them over a few months to see how they do.  Should be interesting!

Playing the wrong game

I play in two different weekly tournaments.  One is a standard holdem game an the other is.. well, the other is just plain weird.

It's dealers choice, though it has to be some variant on holdem.  What they usually play is what they call "four and keep 'em", in which you get four cards and play all of them.  Of course this causes hand inflation: two pair or a straight will almost never win.  Flushes and full house are expected and four of a kind and straight flushes come up often.  As your opponents are holding four cards, what's on the board is almost meaningless.

Not entirely meaningless, of course, but you do have to strongly adjust your thinking when raising or even calling.  Even aces full of kings might be beaten by somebody holding an invisible four of a kind.  That's not likely, of course, but it can happen.

Tuesday was this game.  I don't know what was wrong with me the first two hours, but I was playing normal holdem, not four card holdem.  I think I was distracted by email from a customer that I was dealing with between hands, but it really was stupid: I was holding four cards in my hand and betting on the board as though it were only two!

Of course I bled money.  After my fourth rebuy (I seldom make any rebuy, never mind four!) I woke up and changed my strategy.  That let me get to the final table and ultimately i took third place.  That doesn't pay much, so I still lost money, but not as much as I would have otherwise.

Advanced Tournament Holdem advice

If you are like me, you've read plenty of poker blogs and websites.  You are probably well beyond the neophyte stage and aren't baffled by concepts like implied odds and more.  The articles are fun to read, aren't they?

I wonder though if you've noticed what I have: no matter what the situation, you can probably find at least two well written explanations that advise acting in entirely opposite ways.  Sometimes you might even find that from the same author, separated by months or even years between writing.

There's always good reason and it's always because of things that aren't related to the cards.  "I felt he'd see my intent, so I just cold called instead of raising", "I limped in just to confuse him" and so on.

Yes, I believe in fundamentals.  You've got to know odds, you have to be aware of your outs and all that. But poker - especially tournament poker - is a game of people and situations in addition to a game of odds.