So ive recently started investing more in mtt's. mainly because i won a 90man and the payout for coming first is so much bigger than single table or cash games. i would consider myself a begginer but in the next 10 games i placed 6 between 10-20 and the others in the last 20ish. well i started thinking about my general strategy and if its good enough to win again. but really it doesnt matter how you play because at some stage or another you are going to have to play a few coin flips. i can usually make the top 40, if im lucky, by just playing my normal game and not having to risk a coinflip. since it takes so long to get to the late stages i started asking myself if its really worth investing so much time on something that will inevitably be a game of pure luck. Really i want to tell you my general strategy and see if you think there is anything i can do to improve. Ill always start a tourney supper tight and aggressive. especially in the first 5-10 hands i wont play without a monster or a strong hand in good position. as the game goes on things will either being well, in which case i loosen up considerably but always playing my position. if things are going bad im waiting for a monster and an all in. so by now im either out or doing great, but the blinds are getting big and im tightening up again. im starting to steal blinds and watching other players to see if there is a loose fishy whose chips i can eat. but this is when i hit a problem, because for most people its push or fold time. well i cant let myself get blinded away, im usually playing very agressive taking as much blinds as possible. but somewhere along the way im going to get called. funnily enough people will call you with anything once you have destroyed your table image, which is probably a good thing but it always seems that the luck goes against me. well thats about my whole thing.. any advice etc would be appreciated. i should probably also mention that im playing $3 90 man knockout, which is probably why its so easy to beat the first half of the pack
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Denmark
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 2644
Wall of words but I got through it.
I don't know much about MTT's and it's also hard to give advice in general. My main strategy in MTT's is tight in early levels then I loosen up on the mid levels and tighten up towards buble.
Joined: Jun '08
Location: Canada
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 188
It is a pretty solid strategy. You definitely want to start out pretty tight because we all know what the first few hands can be. I think it's always a good thing to have that tight image because you tend to get away with a little more. The thing is though and you're right The higher the blinds get the more play shifts to preflop rather than post flop. That's just how it goes once the blinds creep up. Tightening up around the bubble isn't the best plan. That's the time you need to start ramping it up if you plan on doing well. People are less likely to want to play bigger pots that close to the payouts. Last thing is small stacks can kill you at this stage. You never want to get involved in a pot with one of the shorter stacks unless you have a hand your comfortable playing allin with them. Just saves alot of chip bleeding in the late stages.
Joined: May '08
Location: Germany
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 6786
MTTs have a very high variance. Usually only the top 10% are paid. And real money is only be made at the final table. So you have to take risks at some point if you are not hit by the deck.
Joined: Mar '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 6714
pokerpaul has some good advice, tight to start, but be over agressive with you good hands, so many donks will pay you off, its best IMO to take advantade of the donks whilst they are there, the longer the game thhe looser you should play, when them blinds are big you got to keep on top of them and not fight to stay alive, again aggressin pays well in tourns. He is also right about SS, if you ar BS its easy for you to call them but they will be playing big hands for all the money, dependding on the player its best to avoid them, however they are good for taking BB off, position position position. Knockout as in bounty games are slightly diffrent, take risks against the SS as the money involved can make up for it, sometimes you will make a lot more on taking out the SS than just being ITM. 1st KO is a BI 2nd is +ROI etc.
thanks for the advice, i normal forget about the short stacks since ive been stealing their blinds when they were medium stack . i also have another question which i forgot to mention.
same as before your fairly late in the game, only this time to the right of you is a very agressive player. he is raising 90% of the hands that fold to him and he is playing his position well. so i feel like i really cant call and i cant wait forever to hit a monster, should i call all in with a marginal hand like a medium pair or ace medium kicker, two face cards, where would you draw the line? i personally am calling him 100% of the time from the bb with a pair or an ace but im interested in what other people would do.
Joined: Nov '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 2194
thats about the way we all go at it but you could try mixing it up a little more especialy as you can recognise when all the others are push and go this is when im at my tightest and picking my spot. if you can get through this period with a tight image you can steel even bigger blinds with a super tight image..
but I got through it.
. i also have another question which i forgot to mention.
