Tam Tran

Besides running with the nuts and waiting for 6 card run downs, triple suite aces and such is their any optimal bluffing strategies in this game. At the moment on fulltilt it's absoutely soft and the games are so beatable since it's completely filled by maniacs at tables who ship it preflop with weak rundowns and pairs. This is  completely insane on my behalf. So any thoughts guys?

This was an interesting hand i noticed while playing a 2/4 dollar NLH live cash game on christmas eve. The two players that encountered each other had similar stack sizes of about $500 each, give and take several dollars. The table was moderately loose with some solid players. It was folded to the guy in mid position who raised it to $15. It was then folded around to me on the small blind which I also folded. The only remaining guy was the big blind who min raised it to $30. This guy had shown so loose holdings previously. The guy back in mid position called the extra $15. The flop came A 5 3 rainbow. The big blind guy half bet the pot and the mid position guy called. The turn was a 4 and the big blind guy barreled again for half the pot and the mid position guy again called. The river came a 7 and there was no possible flushes. The final board read A 5 3 4 7. There was approximately $250 in the pot now. Both players still had stacks in the range of $350-$400 left. The guy in the big blind took about 20 seconds then pushed allin, basically a massive over bet. The guy in mid position also took his time and spent well over a minute. Then finally called. The who pushed allin in the big blind revealed pocket 22s for a A-5 straight. The mid position guy looked puzzled then left the table after he got stacked. The big blind guy cheekily said merry christmas just to shed the extra pain. However, the question is what hand did the other guy have when he made the massive call because he mucked his hand and didn't show it. What do you guys think??

In my previous post I thoroughly went through an optimal preflop strategy for hyper turbo tournaments, however i will expand more on making better and stronger decisions given you've made it fairly deep in the NLH hyper tournament and given the majority of the players are mid stacked ranged (approx 10 bb). I'm writing this to state the regularity of hand match ups seen at these type of tournaments which is less likely to occur in regular tournaments and the adjustments that one needs to make in their play.

You are going to face the situation of calling off a late position shove in the blinds much more often by this stage of the tournament as antes and blinds are insanely high. People will now be increasing their range as well as be stealing with much more marginal suited connected, small pocket pairs, picture high cards and the odd garbage hand. Your aim here is to make mathematical calls as you would find it much harder to outplay opponents given the structure isn't designed for high levels of preflop play (such as protecting your hand, restealing and so forth). Hence you've had a fair idea of your opponents style and the way they've been running of the last several rounds of hands: on a hot run by hitting their large range of hands or being slightly more patiently. The player that we are to target is the one on the hot run and playing a large range of hands. We aim to call off these players only when they seem to be stealing.

Almost any A high must be considered and is recommended as you would technically be a favorite a majority of the time and any two cards over 10 high would roughly be a coin flip most of the time and any two cards over J high is considered to be a favorite and recommended to be called as it would be a similar matchup like the A high. This is because about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time these calls that you make will be bluff catchers which will make you about a 66-75% or so favorite. On the down side your opponent could also be making a shove with a similar strength calling range as it would technically leave either players crushed with similar match ups like A4 vs A7 or KJ vs J10. This is the most likely situation to occur when calling off, therefore stack sizes should be taken into consideration. If you and your opponent have fairly similar sizes around 15 bb it's best to decrease your range and call them off with slightly stronger ranges, like A7+ and if your covered by opponent any hands within the range mentioned previously should be done. This is because the psychological understanding that your opponent believes that they can start stealing pots with wider ranges as they have you covered comes into play. They also know that they wouldn't be knocked out and would believe that it be easier to steal your blinds as you are attempting to survive. A mention also needs to be added for small pocket pairs like 22-66 as all hands like this must be called regardless of stack sizes and the situation would almost always be a small edge favorite and the remaining pocket pairs are no brainers.

What i find it difficult to interpret sometimes is the fine line between calling a 4-6 bet preflop pot bet or just playing for all your chips given the stacks are deep with 150+ bb. I'm considering whether it's a flaw in plo as in holdem a premium pocket hand playing for all your chips preflop certainly isn't. Given the equity of hand matchups in plo i find it more porfitable to call these situations rather than to play for all your chips but the dilemma rises when your given the task of calling someones else allin as well with AAXX double suited. Is there any optimum way to profitably play these hands, even though you will probably get in another 40-60 situation and can rebuy as many times you like. Is it considered donkish to play for all of your chips?

Hi guys this is my first post being part of this exciting forum.
I'd like to say in the last few weeks i've been playing some online low stakes hyper turbo tournaments on stars and fulltilt. I've noticed that due to the super short stack chips in play (10bb starters) people tend to not have an optimum strategy preflop. I find it crucial to have a solid understanding of this type of game as it's very new in the poker world and very few strategy guides have been written so far.

Assuming that people have a solid understanding of holdem hand selection we can then start to develop an optimum strategy for these type of tournaments. Your game play will get improve and you will find more consistent results by following a few simple rules for the hyper turbo tournaments.

Ruke 1: In the early stages of the tournament push for all of your chips with any ace on the button and any pocket pair which you are first to act in an unopened pot

Rule 2: avoid slow playing any hands and don't get fancy playing any flopped monsters as the stacks are too shallow to be doing any sort of play. Bet them and don't check even if your in or out of position.

Rule 3: Don't try to make sick laydowns preflop and play your flopped top pairs hard against a single opponent.

Rule 4: avoid raising 3-2 times the big blinds (i.e small ball play) with stacks of 10 bb or less. All raises or any attempt to win pots should be shoving allin takign into considering of the previous rules.

Rule 5: Limp more often than raising as stacks are so low. For example KQ in mid or early position with 10-20 bb instead of raising.

Rule 6: Call more often with opponents that seem to be stealing with allin shoves, with hands of atleast A high in the blinds. With consideration that you have atleast or approximately 2 stacks of theirs covered.

Basically we are going to employ moving allin, calling raises or limping as to to open raising small 2-3 bb. This is because stacks of these size employ less skill wise to play tricky preflop poker. Like 5 betting with J10 suited and rather let it come down to the small edges of math over the longer periods by making the tougher 2 bet allin calls or plays . With this kept in mind and employing it to your current NLH mtt game you should get further in these hyper turbo types. One thing that also needs to kept in mind regardless of the levels and stakes this is the one of the few games where skill level isn't going to deviate as much and would most likely see an idiotic shove at the high stakes and low stakes.