MTT Early Tournament Approach/Strategy – General Game Theory

[Yo'Maha]

MTT Early Tournament Approach/Strategy – General Game Theory

I’ve been playing regularly both live and online for over four years now with some relatively consistent results. I have cashed in numerous mid level tourneys, and have won (4) mid-level tourneys ($110+ buy-in/200+ Players) outright. That may not be hugely successful for some, but for me, I am playing with the houses money and my bankroll is stable – so I consider it a success.

Throughout this time period, I have been successful with numerous different overall strategies and approaches while my skills continue to evolve, I read new books, digest info., etc., etc……

I’ve found myself in quite the rut lately and can’t seem to find myself anymore in terms of what my general style is or what my approach is to particular tournaments. I seem to have hit a wall where I can’t seem to break through and find my comfort level anymore. I find myself either too concerned with chip stacks early and getting into trouble in marginal spots, or playing too tight and getting blinded to death – negating my ability to capitalize when good situations do come my way.

Needless to say, I’m finding my ROI dwindling in the past few months and it’s causing me to re-think some of my early tournament strategy.

My questions are:

1 - Early in large-field tourneys (150+ players) – what have you found to be successful in the early stages?

- One strategy is to play a wide variety of hands in different positions early on because: (a) it’s cheaper to see more flops and better your chances to build a chip-stack without too much risk. (b) more of your opponents will play tighter early on – giving you good opportunity to scoop uncontested pots (c) you can play more pots against potentially weaker opponents.

- Another strategy is to play relatively tight early on to: (a) allow the fields to thin out a bit. (b) allow the blinds to become more meaningful, thereby allowing you to find spots to use aggression to your advantage and play pots with meaning against meaningful opponents (c) look to play premium hands against weaker opponents as the field has yet to thin out.

…………………While I’ve been successful with both strategies, what do you prefer and what approach do you take and find to be more successful?


2 - I’ve heard many highly successful tournament players say that “good tourney players never allow themselves to get too short-stacked in a tourney. They always keep themselves in a position to win the tourney or they go home”.

- When do you consider yourself “short-stacked”? Example: Level 6 – 150 players remaining, Average stack: T$10,300, my stack: T$6200. If I’m somewhat card-dead, should I be getting desperate here? Should I be getting more aggressive to build a stack, or can I still be patient and what for better spots? At what point do you decide….I need to gamble here a bit to get in a better position?

- Should I be more concerned with building a large stack or staying alive early on?

Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas would be greatly appreciated. I’m floundering a bit here and need some advice to get back on track. Thanks in advance……


- Stuck in mid-level hell…….. feeling like a donkey…….

[Yo'Maha]

Interesting - No replies?

I know OP was long, but the questions are fairly straightforward and I though would easily spurr on some conversation.....?

Just looking for some good conversation on strategy as I can't seem to find myself right now.......Stuck in between strategies is not a good place to be.

[swede554]

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1 - Early in large-field tourneys (150+ players) – what have you found to be successful in the early stages?

- One strategy is to play a wide variety of hands in different positions early on because: (a) it’s cheaper to see more flops and better your chances to build a chip-stack without too much risk. (b) more of your opponents will play tighter early on – giving you good opportunity to scoop uncontested pots (c) you can play more pots against potentially weaker opponents.

- Another strategy is to play relatively tight early on to: (a) allow the fields to thin out a bit. (b) allow the blinds to become more meaningful, thereby allowing you to find spots to use aggression to your advantage and play pots with meaning against meaningful opponents (c) look to play premium hands against weaker opponents as the field has yet to thin out.

…………………While I’ve been successful with both strategies, what do you prefer and what approach do you take and find to be more successful?


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The thing is that there is right or wrong answer to this question. There is no magic formula when it comes to MTT's. The only advice I can give you is to find a style that you feel comfortable playing and that works for you, but also to be capable of mixing it up when necessary. The answer to your question on what style of play is the most profitable is that it depends on a lot of thing. Table composition, your image, metagame considerations, etc, etc.



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2 - I’ve heard many highly successful tournament players say that “good tourney players never allow themselves to get too short-stacked in a tourney. They always keep themselves in a position to win the tourney or they go home”.

- When do you consider yourself “short-stacked”? Example: Level 6 – 150 players remaining, Average stack: T$10,300, my stack: T$6200. If I’m somewhat card-dead, should I be getting desperate here? Should I be getting more aggressive to build a stack, or can I still be patient and what for better spots? At what point do you decide….I need to gamble here a bit to get in a better position?


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First off, don't be so concerned what the avg. stack size is for the tournament at any particular point. What you should be looking at are the stacksizes of the people at your table. These are the only stacks you need to worry about really because these are the only stacks that should have an impact on any decisions you make. So anyways, to answer your question, for example if the blinds are 100/200 and you have a stack of 6,200, no you should not be desperate even though you're below average because you still have plenty of chips to play with. If the blinds are 500/1000, then yes, you should be looking to push with a lot of hands.



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- Should I be more concerned with building a large stack or staying alive early on?


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Neither and both. What you should be concerned with is to play in such a way that will maximize your EV. Sometimes that means you'll be playing aggressively and looking to acquire a big stack. Sometimes the spots just aren't there, so you'll have to be more patient. Don't try and force anything just because you can't get anything going the first few levels. I've gone deep in so many tournaments after I've been below or around my starting stack by the first break. Obviously when my stack starts dipping into <10bb territory I'm going to open up my game some more, but that's for another discussion.