Betting Strategy Question

[mrbill]

Tournament round is 20 hands, Initial BR 500, max bet 300, min bet 5.

There are a couple people in this tournament that come out max from the start. I've seen a couple of them out in 2 hands. They basically bet max till they are out or they have a comfortable lead. If they win the first hand then they drop down to min till someone catches them. If they lose they just rebuy for the next session. If they lose then, they're done.

My question is, if I am against one of them and they win first hand, and I plan on starting with min bet, how long do I wait before I try to catch them? In the past I've gotten over-anxious and gotten myself in trouble. I generally try to catch up as quick as I can, but I'm thinking a smaller gain would be better to shoot for early in the round.

 

[Hollywood]

I assume only one advances in this round, and that once Mr Big Bettor gets a max bet lead over the field, he completely pulls back to minimum bets. Since this is a 20-hand round, you really have a good 10-12 hands before you need to worry about taking a solid shot. Sure, you could do it earlier (betting contrarian when last to act somewhere around hand 6 or 8) but a more realistic strategy would be to see what happens when somebody ELSE at this table tries to take a shot at the leader. Some may fail trying (good for you), but how does BR1 react when somebody wins a max bet of their own? Go right back to betting big, or actually use more complex methods of betting? Launching out with a max bet right off the bet is almost never the best play to make, so i can only imagine that this player has a solid chance of crashing out and ending back at his starting BR -- or worse -- when threatened by another player who catches good cards on a max bet of their own.

Considering his wild tendencies, I wouldn't worry about 'catching' him until about hand 12. Give him (and others) a chance to make mistakes. If you get close to hand 12 and 2 or more people are now more than a max bet ahead of you, the only two options would be to make a contrarian max bet when the leaders are betting small, or try to run a series of 2-3 larger progressions to catch up.

-holly d.