Sunday Million Advice

[sk8r_daniel]

I recently won a $10.70 +$1 double shootout to get into Pokerstar's Sunday Million. I've never played in this tournament and I was wondering if anyone had advice on how the level of play changes. I usually play large $10 tournaments with 2-3 thousand people and find them quite donkish and easy to get through most of the field, and then there are more good players and the usual stealing/ restealing. I tend to play fairly tight in these and don't bluff too much.

I've played quite a few tournaments for 20-50 bucks with some results, but find the play is much tougher and as I go up in the buy in the more I have to rely on spotting weakness in my opponents. Players don't just donk off their stack to you.

So Are there still alot of bad players in this tournament?

[Pino_Diablo]

not nearly as much as the 25000 player tourney $10+1 $200K @

just be prepared to play "all day" and be well versed in stack management when the blinds get "insane" if you get that far. survival is the key as well as position as well as a wee bit of luck.

[drmcboy]

you're better off taking the T$s. I have a roll that I assume is much larger than yours and I only play the million a couple times a month with my FPPs. The players are certainly terrible but it's the whole 6,000 of them that are tough. The structure is also nothing special.

[drmcboy]

PS if you are just itching to take a shot above your roll, I would recommend playing the daily 80 grand ($50BI) 4 times, either 4 Sundays or really whenever. Good % of terrible players in each but a lot less total.

[bigspenda73]

While I'd usually say play within your roll, fuck it, you may only get one shot to play the Million, might as well take it.

Just play good solid tournament poker, why would you change your strategy much?

[mcatdog]

This thread comes up around once a month on here and doc always posts the same answer (and he's right). What a nice guy!

If you must play it, just play the best that you know how to. A lot of the guys in this tournament won their way in through a satellite. They are the same small-stakes players that you're used to playing against, so don't do anything too different.

[sk8r_daniel]

My roll is at a disappointing $2800 after a dry spell...I'm a bit of a gambler and I really want to play this tourny so I'm not taking the buy in and leaving. It's good to hear there are still terrible players. I'll let you know the results.

[sk8r_daniel]

I placed in a disappointing 5000th place. One key hand left my head scratching if I made a bad reraise or a bad fold. Having trouble getting the hand history but...

Villain was running something like 53/5 and was limping and calling large bets to try to outflop opponents. I hadn't seen him raise anything until this hand with me.

Blinds 25/50
Villain is UTG+2
Hero in BB

Villain (~10,000 chips)limps for 50, 4 other callers.
Hero (~10,000 chips) in BB with AQo raises to 350
Villain calls (as expected with wide range) 4 folds.

Flop is Q 7 5 with 2 clubs. I raise to 600 and villa REraises 600 to 1200.

I am confused by this bet, and usually suspect a callingstation who rarely bets to represent a strong hand...like 55, 77, 57 or maybe just a Queen wit ha worse kicker. I decide to find out right there if my hand is any good and reraise to 2500. He automatically shoves all in and i take a long time and pansy out and fold.

Later on I see him reraise(not a minreraise) with a flush draw and then call off his whole stack. I was left wondering if I misplayed my hand and wasted nearly half my stack by my ridiculous reraise.

What should I have done to cut my losses, or find out if he had a better hand than me? I thought about calling him down to the river, as he may have nearly anything, but didn't have much of a read on villain ATM.

This is where I struggle the most in poker, playing big pots against large allin raises. It seems I am always at the receiving end of having the 2nd best hand or people are shoving flush draws down my throat.

[drmcboy]

the problem with your line is it gives you no info. If he has a flush draw he may call or he may shove but he sure won't fold. Same with the hands that have you beat and probably KQ. And he'll fold everything else.

I would probably just go into c/c mode after the flop min raise unless another club hits.

this hand also shows that it's hard to play TPTK hands with 50 BBs OOP. I don't think raising is a bad play but it gives you a lot more tough decisions to make. you're either forced to give a free card or two or to play a mongo pot with a pair

[mcatdog]

He might face tough decisions later in the hand, but he hasn't faced any yet. This is a very easy call and raising is terrible (unless he's so bad that you can happily call a shove).

[sk8r_daniel]

Does the situation change if a solid player such as yourself was the villain? How would you react to my reraise if you had a flush draw or a weak queen?

I realise you likely wouldnt limp call with a weak queen to begin with but I'm just wondering how terrible my raise was. Normally I would have check called but I thought it seemed weak. At the moment I thought I was defning my hand but in reality I was putting myself in a situation where there was no correct decision.