Joined: Feb '08
Location: United States
Age: 51 (F)
Posts: 581
Anyone else have this problem? I always seem to do very well in the beginning of tournaments, often doubling or tripling my starting stack in the first hour. I think the reasons are there are more donkeys early on who go bust early and give their chips away, and also I'm more focused early on since I'm fresh. After around two hours I start to get tired and lose focus.
i do find this too, but i think its partly that when i get kicked early on i forget about it but its when im playing for hours that i remember it all go bad.
also by this point the blinds are usually massive lending itself to pushing hard preflop and leaving it up to luck as oposed to hitting or getting big draws and getting your money in with the best of it
Yeah. In MTT 1st hour going good, we play only premium hand and may be going double or tiple up, but later blind going higher and higher, so we must play more hand, and need do hard action on postflop game. Later when pushbot stage when blind>20% of our stack need play only foldallin and this is really nervios =)
Joined: Jan '08
Location: Croatia
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1308
I do get caught most of the times in that first hour premium hands routine and find myself in position to wait for single hand or bust, if i dont receive enough good cards. What i can tell is that only workable strategy is that you go by that loose in small blinds tight in bigger blinds scheme. Because it wont hurt you much if you spend some of your stack while in a smaller blinds period and you will often get some stupid hand like boat with 7-2, low straight or something like that. Then you pick up enough chips to play and lose some of your hands in 2nd half of first hour so you can see more flops or get chips from those lucky all in guys which dont know how to play actually. If all goes well you can continue this tactics till end of tournament or until those blinds go skyhigh. Only thing that can put you down even in early stages is bad luck. You can see how are you doing by splitting your stack with blinds(SB+BB) and see what factor you get if it fells below that magic 10x your losing it and you must get up as soon as possible, because youre in danger of not being able to play 2 hands with normal bets placed. Some guy did that X factor strategy for SnG but if you forget that guy is some ego maniac there is some truth to that X factor system and it works in MTT`s too. I think "Pokerprofesor" or something like that is the guys name. Google it he has a website with 2 part movie you can watch, he plays SnG and explains tactics and X factor system.
PS. people make fun of the guy saying that it is probably the only SnG he won. And by the way he acts you can get that feeling too.
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Slovakia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 824
The things is guy in start you can play more hands but how the tournament goes to later parts you have to be patient and mostly wait to only good hands or to play less good hands nnot that offen
well this is normal you just need practice for example im cant play a MTT more longer than 6 hours but first im tired in 30 min and other reason its the stack if you got too much chips then your style will be change a little you will make more calls or play agreesive then you dont see the others styles
Joined: Sep '07
Location: Finland
Age: 58 (M)
Posts: 38
I have trouble in the middle of the tounament. I often have average stack and get a premium hand and then a megastck will bust me with any two cards. It happens over and over again.
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Slovakia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 824
Posted by mrperfect: I have trouble in the middle of the tounament. I often have average stack and get a premium hand and then a megastck will bust me with any two cards. It happens over and over again.
If you are avg stack in midle of tournamet you have to try steal blinds with good cards in good positions or you will be ate by blinds and ante
Joined: Sep '07
Location: Finland
Age: 36 (M)
Posts: 94
my strategy is that in beginning play AQ,AK,TT,JJ,QQ,KK and AA but because players go allin in first stage easy so i think it is better to wait that people have lost and then raise on the button and start playing better and stronger in am very good in mtt because i play strong.
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Slovakia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 824
Well if you wanna be ITM its better try to play more at starting ( to play more combnations ) since BB is pretty low so you can see more flops ... and jut after the one hour is good to play tight
and other reason its the stack if you got too much chips then your style will be change a little you will make more calls or play agreesive then you dont see the others styles 
