In the last instalment, our staff writer Keir ‘Kezay69’ Mackay’s efforts to become a winning MTT master almost ended with his first final-table finish. Here’s how he got on in month three…
Week one – buy the ticket, take the ride
As I edged towards the halfway stage of my MTT adventure, the need for a big score was weighing heavily on my shoulders. My coach Magnus Martin had spent hours drilling me in the secrets of going deep in big-field MTTs, and the pressure was growing. This month, it was final table or nothing. Magnus watched on through TeamViewer as I slaughtered a 1,600+ field MTT in my first session, entering the final two tables with an above-average stack. The smell of victory hung heavily in the air and with just 11 players remaining I was dealt A-K. The chip leader shoved and I was only too happy to get it in, until he showed Q-Q. Board: 2-K-T-J… 9. ‘F♣♦♠,’ said Magnus succinctly in the chat box. F♣♦♠ indeed. Oh well, 11th place and a $55 payout was still progress – sweet, soul-destroying progress.
Lesson learned: God hates me.
Week two – lack of a peel
Week one’s conclusion left a bitter taste in my mouth. One thing you need as an MTT grinder is a thick skin, but my hide was as thin as tracing paper and I was getting angrier to boot. After a post-heartache debriefing from Magnus on Universal Replayer, it was evident that regardless of variance, my game was far from watertight. One particular niggle was my tendency to raise over the top of c-bets with medium pocket pairs. ‘His c-bet looks like a big pair, so I don’t think your raise is likely to work very often,’ Magnus told me after another mistimed raise. ‘You could just peel one off and see what he does on the turn, or better yet hit a set! You don’t need to give up a chunk of chips.’ As sound as this advice was, though, it couldn’t help me right now, as I was breaking one of the cardinal sins of poker: never played tired. What followed was the worst run of my short MTT career: 15 tourneys, no cashes. Oh dear.
Lesson learned: Take this stuff seriously. Rest, eat right and concentrate… that’s an order!
Week three – lean times
At the end of last month, I decided the answer to my final-table woes was simple: play more tournaments. But in reality I was spreading myself too thin. By week three I’d had enough and took a knife to my schedule. No more six-max events. No more turbos. The days of excess were finished. I set myself a four-table limit and stopped flicking through tables like a mindless drone. Without eight tables clamouring for attention, I could focus on my opponents’ c-bet and limp percentages and Hold’em Manager was no longer just a box of stats that went largely unnoticed. Don’t get me wrong, the final tables weren’t exactly flooding in, but I was no longer ‘stacking off light’, as Magnus would say. By the second session of the week the cobwebs had parted and I was back in the money: two min-cashes and $8. Boo-yah. Strategy-wise, Magnus spent most of the week focusing on my c-betting percentage. Like most, I was of the belief that if you don’t c-bet, you don’t know how to play poker. But during one $4 MTT , I raised with A-Ko in mid position and led out on a T♣-9♣-5♠ flop in what I thought was a standard play. Wrong. ‘I would definitely give up on this flop,’ Magnus barked afterwards. ‘You’re in a three-way pot, one player has position on you and that is a very wet board. You don’t need to c-bet every time.’ Huh, who knew?
Lesson learned: Just because Magnus can grind 20+ tables doesn’t mean I can… yet.
Week four – you cannot be serious
My final week got off to a flyer with a deep run in a 1,956-man, $8 event (I finished 187th). Pleased that I’d rebounded from a shaky couple of weeks, Magnus decided it was a good time to ramp up the aggression. Whereas before I’d been folding hands like K-7s with a 55BB stack to a 3x raise, according to Magnus, unless the original raiser has a relatively tight image (VPIP less than 17%) I should be opening up here, a lot. ‘If you think opponents will fold to a three-bet then hands like K-7s or Q-Ts are no longer an instant fold,’ Magnus said. ‘When you’ve got that kind of stack size, bully and keep accumulating chips.’ The lesson worked, and on the next night I once again found myself on the final three tables of a 1,600-man MTT . The only thing Magnus can’t change, though, is variance. The broken record started again with 24 players left, as I got it all-in with A-Q against A-T. He hit top two and my chances of making a final table once again came up short. *sigh*
Lesson learned: Don’t let variance get you down. The results will come…
Month three stats
- Tournaments played: 33
- IT M finishes: 7
- Biggest cash: $55
- Best finish: 11/1,612
- Total profit: -$18
Tip of the month
Magnus Looks at two different hands and how to ramp up the aggression late on
Hand 1
Blinds: 2,000/4,000/a500
Keir’s hand: J♣-T♠
Action:
UTG+2 limps (stack 147k)
UTG+3 limps (stack 197k)
BUTTON limps (stack 130k)
Kezay69 (SB) shoves for 49,211
BB folds (stack 125k)
Everyone else folds
Given Keir’s stack and those around him, shoving here was a risky option. However, by paying attention to his opponents’ high limp preflop and PFR percentages, he could exploit those looking to see a cheap flop. With 12BB , Keir is likely to have a better hand than J-To in their eyes, and by taking the initiative he managed to
secure some valuable chips.
Hand 2
Blinds: 2,000/4,000/a500
Keir’s hand: 5-5
Action:
UTG+1 limps (stack 188k)
HIJACK limps (stack 129k)
Kezay69 (CUTOFF) shoves for 66,711
Here Keir has a read on his opponents and knows they’re willing to fold to a three-bet squeeze. Both the limpers have 30BB + stacks, but by limping instead of raising, they allow Keir to make an easy move. The players who limped should be raising preflop and forcing the short stacks into a decision. Instead they let Keir almost double his stack within two hands by being too passive and not bullying the table.
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