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Do you change your bet sizing (compared to the pot/blinds) in live tournaments compared to online? I mostly think about preflop raise sizes and cbet sizes.
TPE Management
April 6, 2010
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I'm not sure it is correct, but I do raise a bit bigger preflop live. early stages I still raise standard 3x but once antes kick in I lean more towards like 2.5x than 2 – 2.25x.
Again not sure this is correct, but I do it because i feel like if I am stealing live players are just more likely to call min-raises and if Im “raising for value” live players are just as likely to call 2.5x as they are 2x with a wors hand.
I also tend to mix up my raise sizes a bit more depending on the opponents because I dont think most live players are paying a ton of attention to the fact that your aised 2.5x two orbits ago and now you are raising 2.25x.
I'd like to hear what the other pros think though as I'll be playing a ton of live tourneys very soon and would like to fix this now if im making a big mistake here.
it really depends on how deep stacked my opponents are that will dictate my raise size.
if I am playing a big buyin tournament where people are sitting 300bbs+ deep, I am 4xing everything for quite a bit of time. I want to bloat pots and play meaningful pots. Once stacks start shallowing out, I adjust the size of my raises, then.
During the WSOP Main event in 2009, I was 3.5xing the entire first day.
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TPE Management
July 20, 2010
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Wein said:
it really depends on how deep stacked my opponents are that will dictate my raise size.
if I am playing a big buyin tournament where people are sitting 300bbs+ deep, I am 4xing everything for quite a bit of time. I want to bloat pots and play meaningful pots. Once stacks start shallowing out, I adjust the size of my raises, then.
During the WSOP Main event in 2009, I was 3.5xing the entire first day.
i like this approach alot, i also find that what is my 20 bb range online becomes my 15 bb range live.
October 6, 2010
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yeah, live you can still get folds with a 10BB stack (in low buyin tourneys), and 20BB is ususally average or sometimes above average, so you just have to adjust your ranges down a bit
What about C-betting? I agree with pre flop sizes, but I find C-betting can stay around 1/2 to 2/3rds and try to keep it cnsistent unless I want to avoid ginvign odds for draws (I find people will call with their draws even though they dont have the right odds though a lot)
My experience is in Tourneys with buyins from around $80 to $350 including some deepstacks at Borgata.
let me know what you think
wisj I was in Vegas thius month 
October 6, 2010
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i think you can cbet a lot less, because people rarely know exactly how much is in the pot.
so lets say the blinds are 500/1000/100, 10 handed, and you open to 2400 and get a caller.
pot is now 7300, but most live fish only think about the 2400 they put in.
so i think in a lot of cases, betting 2800 or 3100 would do the same job as putting in 3700-4k. obviously this is very player dependent.
another tip which will work on fish a lot too is using your smaller demoninations to do the betting. if you have a stack that includes say 100-5k chips, and you want to bet 10100, then if you just flick out couple of 5k chips it looks a lot smaller than cutting a full stack of 500 chips out and betting with that, especially if you dont actually announce your bet and just slide them out in one motion.
once again, most decent players will see right through this, but it will work against a lot of live fish in lower buyin tourneys
Good thread so far. Related question:
How shallow can I reasonably raise/fold as a steal in these live mtts. Online, I've been trying to avoid doing this with less than 20BB. But I am thinking that live, with much less light restealing and tighter allin ranges, that I could continue profitably raise/folding to steal the blinds/antes down to about 15BB. Thoughts?
And taking the same idea a step further, how shallow could I profitably 3bet light/fold in these live mtts with no light 4-betting.
July 3, 2010
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For the first question regarding opening and folding I think you can definitely do it with < 20 bb's live simply because the avg. field is easier and the stacks are not all there on-screen so some players simply never think about effective stacks because they are not good at poker.
For the second question, I guess the answer is that it depends on what the avg. pf raise sizing is at your table and how often people are folding to re-raises. Online, people will min open and so a 3 bet is only 5-5.5 bb's but if people are 3x'ing or more when playing live you need to be risking 9 bb's or more to get a fold for the same reasons as the first response – most players just aren't good and will flat you way too often to make light 3b'ing a good idea.
At least, that's what I've noticed in the dozen or so mtt's I've played and I had a few very deep finishes at Foxwoods $400 and $500 mtt's and that's basically the way it went down.
I agree with FkCoolers. You can 100% raise/fold with smaller stacks then you can online. There are certain situations where raise/folding 11-15bb stacks can be the right play based on opponents. For the second question I think that's a very important component that a lot of people forget about. Pre-flop raise sizing live tends to be a lot higher then it does online. People also don't like to fold to 3 bets as much in your average low to mid stakes live tournament. For these reasons and the fact a lot dont pay close enough attention to stack sizes it makes it so you have to be much more picky about choosing your spots to 3 bet real light.
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