MTT freerolls

[AlamedaMike]

In my spare time I have been playing online free point MTT's - usually Turbo 50+ players. If you are 1st you get a seat in a money tournament an so forth.

I played about 20 of them and I won zero which is expected. The odds are less than 2% anyway. I keep getting knocked out with the best hand preflop or flop. I have made the final table 3 times.

So, I gave it some 'the poker mindset' thought. There are 2 ways to finish a tournament either you win or you lose. There are 2 ways to lose, either you are unluck and lose with the beat hand or you make a bad call.

Since you are (at least me) not going to win more that 2% then you are going to get a lot of knock outs.

Question? Would you rather be unlucky and curse the poker-goddess or make a bad call?

Well, I will take the bad luck over a bad call any day.

In live tournaments (that I do not play but I am in the room) I hear players complain about bad beats all the time (that donkey called me with #@%$#). I guess that they do not realize that is the best way to lose the tournament and most people are going to lose often.

Like Phil said - if they were not lucky he would never lose a tournament.

Thoughts?

Example: Like I have Qd Qc and he has Ad 8s but gets a runner runner spade flush using his 8s. I was 70-30 - that means that 3 times out of 10 I am going to be unlucky

Maybe the strategy is never be all in and take a coin toss?

BTW, I think the odds of making any money in these things is about 10,000-1 and improving your tournament play is about zero. They seem to be popular and pretty much free if you have points. I have points left over from when I played real money on Fulltilt and Pokestars.

[Piemaster]

You're dead right. In a tournament where the money isnt relevant then you are far better off goig out from a bad beat than making a mistake. Even playing for real money, I tend to get more annoyed when I make a mistake than when I get sucked out on.

However you do have to be a bit careful of what you qualify as 'going out through a bad beat'. I read an article once (by Tom McEvoy maybe?) about players who complain about going out to a bad beat, not mentioning that the reason they were short-stacked enough to be eliminated was because they donked off a load of chips or didnt take their opportunities to increase their stack.

[AlamedaMike]

[Muttly]

I always like to know I got in with the best hand and if I lose so be it. Last night I got all in from the BB with K 7 on a J 7 7 flop and got called by 10 9, turn 9, river 9 and I'm out. That stuff sucks but at least I had the best of it when I got my money in.

After I lose in spots like these and the tournament is over I tend to think "ok, I need to work on accumulating chips better so when I push it's a bigger push or so I can take a couple of these and still be alive" it's rare, if ever these days, that you'll win a tournament and not take any, or any large, bad beats at some point.

It's all how you think about it, you think 70% favorite? Sweet, I should win. But if you think 3 out of 10 times I'm done then it really isn't as bad of a beat as it sounds.

[AlamedaMike]

I guess that is why the pros do not like to take coin tosses. On big MTT it is best never to be all-in very often; even 90-10 will lose 10% of the time and compound them and it is harder; I am not sure how to do the math.

[Piemaster]

I think any pro would go all-in in a heartbeat if they knew for sure they had a 70/30 edge.

[nsidestrate]

[Muttly]

Don't get me wrong, I'm taking the 70/30. Just to me when I think I'm going to lose that hand 3 times out of 10 it doesn't sound like as much of a bad beat then if I say I was a 70% favorite.