Any advice for a newbie MTT player?

[mconstab]

After playing limit cash for the last 2 years I've decided I want a complete change and start playing some tournament poker. The problem is I've never played one hand of NLHE in my life so I obviously need to learn that. I've played up to 10/20 6 max limit so I'm confident I can pick up the basics of NL relatively quickly.

My question is where should I start? I'm a member of Stox and Deucescracked so I can start picking up the game through video turorial and I've got a couple of Harrington books somewhere which I think are based around tournament play.

I guess it's all a bit daunting so any advice would be welcomed.

[maf66]

HOH1 & HOH2 are a definite must-read. Try to learn about:

- bet sizes both pre & post-flop
- monitoring your own stack size (i.e. working out your 'M')
- Stealing & restealing
- End game strategy.

Good luck!

(BTW - love the new avatar.)

[jaydreb]

If you follow the advice in Harrington on Hold em you will be ahead of the game.

[taz115]

I personally think the HOH is too conservative and dated to be really effective for online play. It does, however, provide a good set of basics for which to build more aggressive play on.

I would really suggest hanging out a bit or IRC, especially Sundays if you can swing it and railing some of the regular MTTers. Most don't mind chatting a bit about how they played hand or why they chose not to. This is essentially how I learned and I never read HOH and I also came from playing SH Limit.

Watching online video tutorials will help but if that is your only source lots of it may go over your head. It would be like a newbie to limit watching nside play 15/30. They would learn but they would most certainly take some of the wrong information back to their games and use it it incorrectly.

Post a ton of hands, read a ton of hands. This forum is filled with HHs and lots of feedback.

I'd definately read Winning Tournaments One Hand At A Time. Possibly with until you;ve played a little bit. I really liked this book because it shows how 3 successful players approach the game a little bit differently. That kind of perspecitive always improves my game.

You'll most certainly have lots of leaks in your game to start out so I'd start out playing low limits. I originally jumped in back when I played SH limit and played in big tourny's right away and I blew a lot of money making dumb mistakes.

Get ready for some pain... losing streaks in MTT poker can be really painful and you'll suffer some frusrating bad beats at key times that will be a bigger kick in the stomach that any limit hand could be. The payoff is the chance to win a large sum all at once instead of incrementally so success could come quickly or take a long long time to come.

Don't be shy, I hope to see you posting lots in this forum.

[Scully]

If you've already got a Stox membership I would recommend watching Jacksup's video of a $20 20 table tournament.

He makes the whole thing seem trivially easy (which it isn't, obv) but this is a decent video to see how to put the theories of HOH, etc, into practice.

I would also echo the suggestion about hanging around in IRC. I didn't realise it, but I sucked at MTTs at the start of this year. However after railing a few of the guys and talking stuff through with them I got a lot better. I still suck, but less than the other lower stakes MTTers on stars and FTP so I'm making money from them now

One other benefit of hanging around IRC is that when you finally run deep in one of these things there'll be at least one or two people around to help you through the latter stages. Most importantly in keeping you focused - and it's a pretty cool feeling having a few of them railing you and being able to share the success.

Also, as a place to start, you won't go far wrong with the 180s on stars. The $4 ones are pretty easy to be +EV in and give a decent grounding for the various stages of an MTT in a relatively short space of time as they typically take 4.5 hours to play.

[toronexti]

When I made the same switch I basically started by playing the low buy-in mtts . . . $10-$30. Throw in some $10-$20 180s and keep playing Limit to bolster the -ev of learning mtts (assuming ur +ev in limit ).

Hand reading should transfer pretty well from Limit.

When I moves I typically just limited my options of raising to certain amount (being x% of pot or X * BB) and such so that I wouldn't be overwhelmed with the potential to bet 1 to everything.

I 2nd taz's suggestion to hang out in IRC . . . TP who's in there everyday should be able to help you improve your game just by asking him questions and such. It's what I did when I started and it seemed to work decently well.

[taz115]

[Taardvark]

[mconstab]

Cheers for the advice guys. I'm going to take a few weeks off from playing poker and then start to put some of your suggestions into practice.

[Cript]

I concur with those suggesting the $4 ones...when I first started doin 180s all we had were the $20s and that was a bit too high of variance.

If no one has suggested "Winning Poker Tournies One Hand At a Time" yet, I'll do so

[Dvergilio]

[mconstab]

Forgot to ask, how popular are 6max NL MTT's?

Coming from 6max limit these might be more suited to me.

[Scully]

There are one or two on Stars and FTP but they're pretty thin on the ground

[taz115]

6-MTTs offer some great value and I love to play them. I've done quite well with this format but you would be at more of a disadvantage playing 6-max to start out. There are more post-flop decisions and you have to be better at controlling the pot size ect.

It is not much different from limit where I wouldn't recommend a newbie starts out.

[Martio8]

Lately I have been (4)-tabling the 45 player SNGs at Full Tilt.

I'm trying to incorporate a lot of new tactics and these are a great way to quickly cover a lot of common MTT situations.
I like to think of it as my poker labratory.