You live poker tournament players respond

[Penguinfan]

My tournament poker consists of 99.99% on-line tournaments so I'm honestly curious about the blind structure when you play in a live event.

I played in a $30 rebuy game at the Tropicana this past week where you started with T1000 chips and unlimited rebuys for the first hour. So many people were all in so many times that there were HUGE stacks at the end of the first hour. I did an immediate rebuy when the tournament started so I had T2000, was card dead the entire first hour and didn't play a hand outside my blinds. I did the add-on for T2000 so I started the second hour with around T3100 if I remember right.

When we started the second hour the game is now in freeze-out mode but the blinds (20 min rounds) are 200-400 and a 50 chip ante. Seems like I hadn't played a hand, spent $105 and was short stacked immediatly at the start of the freeze-out period.

I had less than 4 orbits worth of chips in my stack and thats only if all 4 orbits happen within the first 20 mins, after that the ante was T50 and blinds 300-600.

Seems to me like either I am way too used to the soft blind structure on-line or this was a crapshoot from the word go.

What is the experience of you live players as far as starting stacks and blind structures?

Thanks

 

[Agent 0659]

Sounds about right. Most of my live tourney experience is at "illegal" places that would run 20-100 man tourneys a couple nights a week. They obviously cant give you as many chips as online because they need to get the tables opened up for cash games. You really should be prepared for anywhere around 4-7 rebuys and an add on to keep up. Or just sit there and pay your blinds until the 1st hour is over and then rebuy and add on and you should be about avg stack. Those are really the only 2 ways o play it. Of course you could catch a rush and start snapping guys off right away and never need a rebuy but since it seems like you run about as good as I do at poker, that will happen about once every 6 years. I havent played much in casinos but from what people tell me they are almost exactly like you say, catch cards in the first 20 hands or you are short stacked immediately. Any less than 10X the Big blind and Im feeling uneasy, which you started with way less than that after the break. They are more like all in shootouts than they are poker. Noone plays post flop anymore, its all about big bets pre flop, all in, all in, all in. I hate it.

 

[ctownguy]

I played at the Venetian and it sounds exactly how we played there. The only thing you didn't mention was we could not rebuy unless you had less than a 1000 in chips.

Other than that it sounds pretty standard.

Also played at Golden Nugget downtown last yr and played no rebuys and never had an ante just the blinds.

Hope this helps.