Deep stages of mTt - how to play it?

[salami1212]

Ok, well yesterday i got semi deep in the 20k guaranteed. came 90th out of 3000. Basically I was chip average at 40k blinds 800-1600. Then the blinds were 1000-2000. How do you play with 20 BB this deep because say if you raise AQ, and flop is K104 and you totally miss, you cb like 4BB and he calls, thats nearly half you chip stack gone already! Really annoying as this happened once and i just couldnt get it back. Is it push of fold at this stage?
The blinds then go up to 2500 and its getting more and more crapshooty..
Any tips?

[BooG690]

Read Harrington on Hold 'Em: Volume II and enjoy.

[revolvingiris]

KT4 isnt a total miss, you have a gutshot with AQ. But you could easily check this board with your stack size. Your getting close to push fold anyways so this seems pretty standard.

[sinister1]

This is a particularly annoying situation that comes up often. When you have 20xbb you should only be opening hands you are willing to get your whole stack in with (for the most part). If there are antes sometimes it is correct to shove a 20xbb stack preflop. If you raise unfortunately a lot of times someone will just call and you whiff the flop. It seems really weak but unless you are very confident you can illicit a fold its best to just check the flop. Cbets are too common these days and everyone knows about them. So more players are making some adjustment to the rampant cbetting like raising them light or floating etc.

Your stacksize is one of your most important assets in mtt play and if you cbet this spot you are putting yourself in a precarious situation when you do not win the pot. I would rather c/f and have 17xbb which would give you some amount of fold equity when shoving or reshoving than cbet and drop to 13xbb where you basically can only rely on winning at showdown.

You get stuck in what I like to call "showdown hell" when your stack drops too low. You can basically never climb out of this place unless you a) triple up, b) win 2 aipf showdowns in a very short span of hands, or c) win 100% of showdowns for the remainder of the mtt (gl). Maintaining a bigger stack size allows you to make your double up "count" when it happens. E.g. you do not cbet that flop and still have 17xbb, now when you double up you have 34xbb and can actually have some room to manuever and play poker. It essentially gives you more options than just push/fold.

drmcboy often recommends a book titled "Kill Everyone" that has excellent information on playing various stack sizes, and even has charts that show how to play push/fold based on your position/stack relative to the blinds/antes.