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Hey all,

I'm trying to improve my discipline in live MTTs since I feel like a lot of my leaks come from trying to outplay terrible donks who think it's against the law to fold pre or raise their nut hands when you're c-betting/barreling into them (lol, I'm a spewtard and I know it).

One of the ideas I came upon was trying to get a hold of my frequencies by studying the positional stats of low to mid-stakes MTT/180-man pros and figure out, in general, what their VPIP/PFR looks like, how often they're 3-betting, how wide their stealing ranges look, etc.

I know there's a lot to be said for table dynamics, situations and whatnot, but I feel that setting rules for myself like "OK, once the antes kick in I'm going to 3-bet about 8% of my hands, with a value range of TT+, AKs, AKo, AQs, KQs, and a bluff range of suited wheel aces and suited connectors T9-54" will give me a good starting point to where I can widen or tighten these ranges based on how my opponents are playing (i.e. nit only opens TT+/AKo+ = tighten up/depolarize, LAGtard raises 70% of pots OOP = widen 3-bet range).

Any thoughts on how to go about this process, or whether or not it's even a worthwhile endeavor? I'm new to taking tournaments seriously and not much of an online player (primary experience is 200NL and 500NL live), so I wouldn't really know where to get the stats to begin with, but I think doing something like this will help keep me out of trouble while I'm getting some practice in.

Following.

I really don't think it is good to just get another player's stats and say well dam he is doing x I guess I need to do x and then just go blindly find a way to get your stats to that level. You should be looking at your fundamentals and general strategy to create a winning play style. The stats are the end result of a winning player. It is kind of like saying well heaps of rich people own a mansion so if I can just save up just enough to buy a mansion then I will be rich... i.e. it makes absolutely no sense. Stats are pretty much irrelevant if you're profiting from the games you're playing. That goes for anything. If you're beating the games it really doesn't matter what your stats are. Focus on learning to beat the games you're playing.

Ravzar, I absolutely understand what you're saying and agree to an extent, but I think with stats and winrate you can get into a "chicken or egg" situation -- i.e., does durrrr make millions of dollars because he has a 3-bet frequency of x%, or was he making less with different balancing schemes/frequencies of x+y% or x-y%, found his sweet spot, and then started printing money?

Put it this way -- I think we can all agree that, outside of specific situations vs. specific villains, raising pre and c-betting either 0% or 100% of boards are both bad and result in us either losing value or setting chips on fire. So, students of the game are taught various rules to govern their c-betting -- do it less vs. multiple opponents, more on king high dry boards, less out of position, etc. This results in frequency X% of c-bets that I suspect closely resembles the average c-bet frequency for your more successful tournament pros, excepting the outliers that play super LAG and hand read well enough to get away with it and the super-nitty types that have some magic wand that gets people to shovel their stacks in when they have the nuts.

Granted, you're absolutely right that if I just start c-betting X% without paying attention to the atmospherics of any given hand, I'm not doing myself any favors, but 1) I have to believe that X% -- referring in general to the concept of mimicking a pro's frequencies -- here is better than 100% or 0% and 2) I can always start with X% (instead of blowing several BI developing it on my own) and work from there, adapting to my opponents' tendencies and my own strengths -- i.e. if I'm good at semibluffing with strong draws or getting value from strong one pair hands, I can do something like establish a preflop range that puts me in more of those kinds of situations postflop and weight my value/bluff c-betting frequencies to cater to those strengths.

With c betting you're not really looking at creating an ideal % though. In my opinion the % is just a by-product of c betting the right boards over the long term. If you c bet the correct board textured against the correct opponents then over the long term it may be that winning players develop a common 3 bet % range. However, just c betting that percentage of the time isn't going to develop your appreciation for the flop textures and table dynamics and reads. When you're trying to reach an ideal percentage to x y and z you're starting to talk about a balanced approach to the game - have you watched the DC shorts on the argument for and against balance?

Nice post, and an interesting question. Tough one for me to even attempt to tackle. w/e

One of the ideas I came upon was trying to get a hold of my frequencies by studying the positional stats of low to mid-stakes MTT/180-man pros and figure out, in general, what their VPIP/PFR looks like, how often they're 3-betting, how wide their stealing ranges look, etc.

Be forewarned, stats in mtts can be misleading at times and often skewed due to nitting it up in early stages & ABC tendencies ect/late game beast mode with a big stack/and rebuys periods ect ect..
I might play 15/10 pre ante and manage to win a few big flip in the process. With a big stack and antes in play i might end running 33/25 with 14% 3b and 80% steal for as long as I can functionally maintain the pressure.

Hope that helps you. If you have some more specific/situational questions or theoretical type stuff,fire away and I'll do my uber bestest

Ravzar - I was mainly using c-betting freqs as an example of one stat to start with, but yeah, to take the idea further -- if you look at the concept, you have all these variables to take into account. How many opponents, is it a paired/two-tone/straightening/flushing/A or K-high board, are you IP or OOP, how often your opponents fold to c-bets. If I'm reading what you're saying correctly, you might suggest that all this is an equation that you solve for X where X = optimal c-betting frequency on average.

I feel like if you don't have the optimal adjustments for the left side of the equation nailed down, having more information in the form of X handed to you can only help you make better adjustments (and is still objectively better than 0% or 100%); i.e. seeing weak hands get to showdown on dry boards against one opponent, you ramp up your c-bets there, and seeing them get called all day in MW pots on wet boards, you dial it back and end up back at X%. Regarding the argument for/against balance videos, Baluga is my hero; they're definitely on my short list to watch once I get through some of the MTT-specific material I have lined up.

Top_Chesney - Thank you! Right off the bat I can codify something I've been doing wrong (probably a holdover tendency from cash); trying to build pots early on and scrap for every one of them instead of being patient for when the antes kick in and they get to be worth stealing pre. I think as much as it's built up my stack a little in the past the risk/reward isn't there for when I get coolered or just screw up and cripple myself early on.

I think I can manage something in the neighborhood of 33/25 (maybe scaled back a bit for live), but getting my 3b up to 14% in the mid stages and stealing 80% is really going to take some work! Still, I feel like I'll learn a lot about my game getting there and that I'll know by the time I reach that point if it's a style I can play profitably or if I belong somewhere else on the spectrum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UIvl_-zuUo

Sorry this thread just reminded me off that old advert, I really cant stress enough the importance of understanding the thinking behind the numbers than just the numbers themselves. I have no doubt that you could beat low/small stakes MTTs with Push Shove charts and early/mid/bubble stage opening ranges, but to really excel understanding the fundamentals is so important.


The good news though is that you're clearly looking to improve your game so thats definitely the right thing to do, personally I would recommend really jumping into the maths of Mtts, Icm calcs and the like, it really is an area that differs from cash so I would definitely try and get your head around that. Also wrt the discipline area, its for sure something that comes with time, but for now really try and concentrate on every decision, and observe hands even when not involved, if you're processing information all the time, it for sure helps with the discipline and patience side.

I realise this doesn't answer your original question, and i'm really not qualified to answer it effectively anyway, I just thought this was an important point to bring your attention to.

Good Luck!