Tournament Planning 2

A more thorough way to plan tournament strategy around the blind structure is to factor in more or less your entire strategy. You may prefer to have a goal to make the final table and from there just use ICM. ICM is terrible for entire tournaments but when you have 5 big blinds and everyone is short stacked (5-10 big blinds) it's all in or fold anyways. Skill may exist but it is really limited. Skilled players might fold a bit more or recognize when jamming slightly wider or slightly less often is better based upon how opponent's are playing and how well they know ICM shoves based upon payout structure.
Say a tournament has 500 hands until 5 handed. You can determine this by the following calculation
1)Number of entrants times average chips per player (starting stack plus add on plus rebuys per person) equals total chips in play.
2)Total chips in play divided by 5 players equals average stack at that stage.
3)average stack at that stage divided by the average number of big blinds like 10 equals the rough approximate blind
That equals the rough estimate of what the big blind is with 5 players left.
Once you know at what blind level, you simply need to know an estimate of hands per blind level. Usually live play is around 30 hands per hour and online is around 100 hands per hour. In other words 30 hands per 60 minutes or 1 hand every 2 minutes( 0.5 hands per minute) live and 100 hands per 60 minutes or 1.667 hands per minute. So if there are 30 minute blind levels live it is about 15 hands per blind level. So 15 times the number of blind levels until the big blind is where you anticipate 5 handed let's say 34 times 15=510 hands per tournament of this nature.

Once you know the number of hands, you can determine how many big blinds per blind level you need to win to avoid getting too short stacked. Your skill edge may diminish under 20 big blinds OR your risk will increase. I would prefer to raise more and take more risk unless I can coast into higher payouts if skill diminishes too much the blinds will catch you and then you have to get multiple double ups just to survive and resort to multiple all ins. If you take too much risk you may end up unnecessarily getting eliminated. There is a difficult balancing act.

Let's say for example you need to steal 3 times per blind level or win about 6.5 blinds per blind level on average whether that is one hand or 10 hands to avoid all ins. You can simply determine what hand range you need to play such that you have a more than 50% chance of getting this hand range 34 times or more.34 because 510/34=15. But with each hand you play you will have to gain 6.5 big blinds. Let's be honest that may be a little high so you will want to widen your range overall or be willing to risk all your chips a time or two or three with superior hands.

Unfortunately you may find out even if you execute this plan, you will spend about half the tournament between 15-20 big blinds.

If the goal is to avoid being all in, chances are this isn't a fast enough rate of chip accumulation given the higher variance that will occur in the 15-20 big blind range and the possibility for hands not coming as regularly, or earnings not maintaining a high enough rate... plus given the action before you act, you may prefer to fold. Foretunately the math is for more than 50% chance of 34 hands OR MORE so it allows us to fold a time or two and still have a good chance of doing very well with manageably limited risk.

But we can still use this hand range as a baseline and build a strategy around it.

So what is the hand range that in 510 hands we will get 34 times or more?
77+,AQo+,ATs+,KQs

Take a situation where it folds to you in Middle position and you raise with this range... We may want to be slightly tighter in early position and looser in late position and tighter when reraising. We also will want to look for any situation that has a better or similar low risk to high reward to a middle position raise equivalent to this.

I believe this strategy becomes most flawed in the ante stages and later on as it's lower risk to fight just a little harder to preserve chips to maintain a large enough stack to avoid anything that could even cause you to approach a stack where an all in may become necessary.

So how about this.

Pre ante stages: when it folds to you
Early position: raise 88+,AKo,AQs
Middle position: 77+,AQo+,ATs+,KQs
Late position:22+,AJo+,KQo,A2s+,[45s-KQs]
When facing a raise from
Early position: raise QQ+,call JJ, bluff raise AKs
Middle position:raise JJ+,call AKo,88-TT, bluff 22-77,AJo+, KQo,X9s (any 2 suits cards with low card 9 or higher)
Late position: raise 88+,AKo,AQs. Call 44-77,AJo,AQo,ATs,AJs,KJs+. Bluff X9o+,X6s+,Q2s+,K2s+,A2s+

Bluffs only done half the time or less unless there is knowledge that opponent folds too often.

Ante stages most people don't play enough hands in my opinion. There is math to back it up. Basically you will get the pot odds to call a raise. In this model the reason we become struggling to avoid all ins is because the blinds catch up to us and the antes are costly. Going card dead late has the most severe consequences and losing a hand or having to fold has greater consequences late.

So how do we adjust to the antes?
Early position: 55+,AQo+,AJs
Middle: 22+,AJo+,KQo,A8s+,K9s+,Q9s+J9s+,T8s+,97s+,76s,65s,54s
Late: 22+,A9o+,KTo+,QJo,JTo,T9o,A2s+,K2s+,Q8s+,J7s+,T6s,96s+,85s+,75s,64s+,54s

When faced with a raise in the ante stages every single hand in the "bluff" range you could call with, but I will say bluff with that range half the time and call the other half in the ante stages. The other details don't change because opponents don't adjust to the antes enough.

In addition, you are always looking for opportunity

For everything else keep risk mitigated to under 2x the Kelly bet such as a short stack jamming.


Adapting: Not every tournament will deliver enough hands and sometimes you may lose a big enough pot to where you are running way behind expectations. As you go below expectations I like to take additional risk (but calculated). If I haven't played a hand in 2 rotations I will raise any two halfway decent cards and if the blind steal fails I will be really cautious and usually check/fold as opposed to continuing. Save the cbets for playable hands. I also might minbet all 3 streets to virtually guarentee a call. This gives up a little bit of value and increases chance of suckouts for a high probability of decent chip accumulation. When you are barely hovering above 10 big blinds or even as you dip below 20 I think minbetting is a reasonable risk and giving up some value in exchange for a high probability of getting back in control is worth an increased chance of allowing a suckout as long as you can fold when they raise and adapt as needed.
Unless there is value from folding your way up a few blind levels, dont fear the all in, we strategize around it but if you are blinding down there, you need to take some chances to get back to manageable. I will usually minraise more frequently say around 7-16 big blinds or consider jamming after a few limpers or a small raise with a wider range.