What is it with the first 2 levels of medium buyin live MTT?
 

In $500-$1000 live events, the first 2 levels are typically 25/50 and 50/100 with 10K starting chips. It seems everyone is just trying to flop a big hand and win a big pot. There are generally a zillion limpers and not much preflop raising. Preflop reraises are usually big pairs. You get a lot of multiway pots where no one will bet because no one connected strongly. It seems you can steal a zillion pots preflop or postflop.

In a way this is softer than early levels of low buyin Internet tournaments or even low buyin live tournaments, where there is a lot of loose action.

These live tournaments tend to be weak/tight the whole way, but as you get further in there is a lot more stealing and restealing.

Has anyone else noticed that this deep stack period tends to play like a bubble? I don't know if people are afraid to bust out early or they don't see the value of picking up a lot of small pots with deep money.

Re: What is it with the first 2 levels of medium buyin live MTT?
 

yes

Re: What is it with the first 2 levels of medium buyin live MTT?
 

I only played in 1 WPT event at Bay101 with $20,000 starting stacks. 1st 2 levels were 95% standard raise openers. I even tried to limp a couple times with JTs and small pair and got raised both times. Could have just been my table though.

Maybe with the extra deep stacks people felt deep enough to play a wide range for a raise so why limp with a narrow range and define your hand.