Late round levels tournament online poker??

Question

Did I play this wrong? If you rank in the top ten chips lead in real late rounds and really close to the money consider there is only less than a 100 players with certain that half of them will be eliminated soon because of their stack size due to the blind. My question is I raise and pre flop bb and got 2 callers one is the chips leader and the other one is about 20bb when the flop come out no face card but I got an open and ended straight with a flush and bet pot size, the chip leader called and 1 fold on the turn I missed but decided to go all in because of the pot oods and to make it short I lost because I didn't hit even with the %, what should I do if you in my situation, please reply and thank you so much for your advice.

Answer 1

You want to play tight!  This is where the saying "protect your chips" comes into play most.  If you're trying to buy a pot post-flop, make sure only short stacks are in the pot!  If a short stack isn't all-in preflop, and just called, they are likely to have a marginal hand that they were looking to connect with, but if they don't, they'll dump it.  

Even though you have a lot of chips, it's easy to lose them to a bigger stack.  You want to make sure you get involved in pots with bigger stacks when you know you can take the pot.

Answer 2

What was your starting hand?  I think you said you were the bb.  If that is the case, this was likely your first mistake.  You didn't have a card over 10 and you raised in the worst position.

When the flop came, you bet which isn't a horrible move with that hand (because you had so many chips and even if called or raised had enough chips to keep going strong), but when the chip leader called you should have just backed off on the river.

So as I see it here were your mistakes:

1)  Raising in the first place because:

     a)  you were out of position

     b)  you had a weak hand

     c)  the chip leader already called

2)  Going all in just hoping you could buy the pot in a situation where the chip leader already called a preflop raise and pot bet on the turn.

What would i have done?  Folded in the first place and waited until:

     a) I was in position

     b) I had a strong hand

     c) ideally I was going up against a weaker opponent (of course with a strong hand I certainly would take on the chip leader.

So may people just love the all-in, but it really should be used with great discretion.

Answer 3

Going all in means "I'm either going to win this pot, or I'm going home".

You were close to the money, you had less than 100 players left, and you were in the top 10.

In that situation, if the chip leader calls my raise, I'd consider folding pocket aces, unless I flop trips.

Answer 4

One of the rules of later round tournament play is picking your spot ... do not go up against chip leader as they are looking to knock people out of tourny. They will make more marginal calls. What you want to do is go up against people who are trying to stay alive by not risking chips.

A percentage bet at this stage is worthless as you are look at survival.

Always remember to pick your spot, and also who you play against.