I continued my experiment with MTS last night at the North Sydney Club APL event.
I have to say; Sydney ALP players are generally much better than the ones I have seen in Perth. Sydney players are capable of folding A 10, A J or even medium Casino Malaysia if they think they are second best. Yet to see even Ace rag folded to anything in Perth.
The MTS continues to work really well in the early tournament stages; that is the first three levels when blinds are at 25/50, 50/100 and 75/150. I limped into six multi-way pots, folded three at minimal cost. I let the second best hand(s) bet into me to the river on the other three and moved my chip stack up to a healthy 5,500 by halfway through level 3.
Then with A 10, for no reason I can think of, I called an aggressive bettor to the river. Well, they were suited, just a different suit to any of the cards on the board. On the turn the board was something like 9 K 7 Q. I think I figured the initial pre-flop raise was a bluff, and the post flop bet was a continuation bet, but I can’t imagine why I called rather than raised representing say, a paired king. I called his bet on the turn for some equally insane reason, figuring maybe if an Ace hit on the river I was good. The river was a 5 and I again called his bet. What the hell was I thinking???? He showed Q 9, and my stack was down to 1,400. I can’t remember ever making a play so stupid.
After the break I was too short stacked against the 100/200 blinds to keep limping. A run of unplayable cards saw my stack dwindle to 1,100 and the blinds now at 200/400.
At least that makes the decisions easy. I pushed all in with J 10 suited and got two callers, an A 4 and a K 10. I paired the jack, the other hands didn’t improve, and I tripled up.
The blinds went up again to 300/600 and I took down a four way limped pot from the SB pre-flop with an aggressive raise. And ‘stole’ the blinds next hand with an 1,800 raise with pocket kings. Even though I was still perilously close to being short stacked, 6,600 it a stack that can do some damage even to the chip leader and is enough to get by with mid tournament if played with judicious aggression.
In this sort of situation, MTS can’t apply. The blinds are too high in relation to the chip stack. I think at least 15 x BB is needed, but 20 x BB would be better. Once the ratio drops under that, tight aggressive play seems to offer the best equity.
I worked my way through 400/800 and 500/1000 steadily increasing my stack. I reached a high point of 24,000 and equal chip leader with the blinds at 1,000/2,000. At that point in the tournament, just about everyone is short stacked and the play necessarily becomes very lose. A combination of a run of bad cards, and then good cards that didn’t hit saw my stack dwindle to 15,000.
I made the final table and drew BB position with the blinds at 2,000/4,000. Facing aggressive pre-flop raises with 7 4 and 9 3 in the blinds left me with a crippled stack of 9,000 and only one move to make. Ace 4 suited was good enough to push. Two callers, pocket sixes and K 7. A four hit, but so did a K. That was me done for the night in sixth place.
