500K Guaranteed No-Limit Tournament

I lasted three hours in the tourney (680 out of 3500 players, which is roughly top 19.4%).  The buy-in was 200+15.   I’m relatively inexperienced in MTTs, but here’s what I learned today:

The first 2.5 hours are pretty slow. Don’t piss away your chips (like I did) during the first 2.5 hours unless you have a big hand. On one hand, at 75/150 blinds, I had pocket 8’s and the player to my left who had rougly 2,000 chips (i had around 6,800) raised to 600 preflop. I called to see the flop. The flop came out A9J, I moved all-in for the rest of his chips. He immediately called. This was a questionable play because in all likelihood he was probably holding an overcard and that’s why he raised. He was holding AKo. After that, I only had a bit above average.

It’s around the 2.5-3.0 hour mark where you start to see a lot of all-ins preflop (usually short-stacks versus big stacks). If you can win a few all-ins in a row during this juncture, things will be looking good for you. Try to be more aggressive and if you’re below average, you need to consider going all-in or fold.

The hand I went out on (QK suited clubs): The flop came out two clubs. The two players before me bet big (over 3,000 chips), I raised all in for another 2,000 (since I was shortstacked and I figured I was getting 3 to 1. If I was going to have a chance to win this tournament, I need to win a big pot like this one (had I hit my flush, I would’ve been in pretty good shape (more than double the average)).

The moral of the story is that except for the last hand, I chose to gamble a bit too early and that cost me the lead. I need to do a better job of timing when I get involved in pots (I was about 45 minutes premature). My next goal is to make it in the top 10-15%.