Early MTT strategy

[Zybomb]

For those of you MTT players out there ---

In general, during the early stages of a MTT where the blinds are fairly low compare to stack sizes, it seems decent players and up employ one of two strategies

1- Playing extremely tight-aggressive and solid. The reasoning behind this is since the blinds are so low, it gives you even more time to fold fold fold and wait for the big hands to come around without worrying about blinds effecting your chip stack. When you do play, you have a big hand, you play it aggressively and generally take down a very large majority of the pots that you play, be them small or large.

2- Maintain an intelligent preflop strategy in terms of range of hands, but try to see a large amount of flops cheapily. This includes medium and up suited connectors and one gappers, high unsuited connectors, suited aces, any pair, and suited or unsuited broadway cards. Hope to hit big hands and get paid off, if not not worry about folding, as you got in the pot fairly cheap anyway

Which strategy do you employ, which do you feel is more effective and why?

If you employ another type of strategy (or a combination of sorts), feel free to include it

[Talking Poker]

I've used both of these strategies, and I've had varying success with both of them. Overall, I think I prefer the first strategy. My biggest problem with that strategy is after hitting NOTHING for a long time and watching the blinds increase and my stack decrease, when do I give up and open up my game? The difficulty of that decision alone has pushed me into using the other strategy (for the get go) many times...

For me, it realy depends on the tourney. For the WSOP this summer, I'll be going with strategy #1 FOR SURE. Why? Because it's stupid not to. With 10k chips sitting in front of me an $75 worth of blinds in each pot, it's simply not worth getting involved in many hands. This is why a lot of players show up late, cause it's just not worth being there for the first few levels. Sleep in. (Yes, I will be there for Hand #1)

For a 180 SNG on Stars, on the other hand, I HIGHLY prefer Strategy #2. In these types of tourneys, I think getting a big stack early is a huge advantage, so I'm willing to take some more risks (still cheaply, if I can) early. And if I get involved in a big hand and get broke, no big deal - it was just a SNG, so I'll fire up another one.

I think the best advice I have heard, at least for BIG MTTs is to use strategy #1 until there are antes. Then switch to Strategy #2. This doesn't work perfectly for all online tourneys (some dont have antes until very late), but I think it's still pretty good advice.

Oh, and I also HIGHLY recomment Strategy #1 for less experience players. You need to be a much better player to be able to handle Strategy 2 properly. Anyone can EMPLOY it, but you need to be a strong post flop player to have SUCCESS with it.

[JDMcNugent7]

I think the very best advice is to try to adapt to the way the table is playing and play a strategy that will work best against that table. If they are tight get in there and pick up small pots with dead money, if they are loose tighten up and make them pay when u hit a big hand.

I use both all the time. Generally, if the tournament has ALOT of entrants(which decreases your chance of winning it), I'll loosen up some and take calculated chances early, limping in multiway pots looking to flop monsters and playing drawing hands. If you want to play this way you have to be sure you are a good postflop player tho and remember not too get too caught up in any one hand. If this doesnt work and I can't hit anything I stop playing this way and tighten up once I lose about 1/5h of my stack.
In smaller tournies I generally start out pretty tight, not looking to force any pots and increase in aggressiveness as the higher blinds and antes come into play.

[Boobie Lover]

I also think it's important to play according to the structure of the tournament. As TP has said, he will employ strategy #1 with the slow methodical blind structure of the WSOP, and I would do that likewise.

If it were just another online tournament, I usually go with strategy #2 because I really don't want to get to a point of push or fold mode. And when it becomes that time of mostly short stacks and I have a reasonable stack, the people that are in push and fold mode I can bully around.

[Van_Broke]

On a somewhat related note, how willing are you to take what you think is a coinflop early in an internet tourney (relatively fast blind structure)? Do you feel the advantages of having a big stack outweigh the obvious chance of busting out early?

BTW, I usually use Strategy1, with very limited success. I find this strategy gets you to the bubble or just in the money a lot of the time.

[Zybomb]

Note than for Strategy 1, this strategy is aborted once the 'early' stages end.

[Talking Poker]

Again this depends on the tourney for me. At the WSOP with extremely deep stacks, there is NO WAY I would take a coin flip in hopes of doubling up early. Ohhh... I got my 10k to 20k. Only 79,990,000 chips to go! It's just not that big of an advantage to be worth the risk of being out.

However, certainly in a 180 SNG and even in a lot of the bigger online tourneys with much faster blind increases, I am willing to take this risk. I'm definitely willing to PUSH in these situations, but I'm not as willing to call.

Example: If I'm holding JcTc and the flop comes AcQc9h, I am holding Jack high, but I have an absolute monster. If I led at this pot and my opponent makes a healthy raise, I'm pushing. Even if he turns over AA, I'm in good shape. If I lead at the pot and he pushes though, it a much more difficult decision (I'd rather just take the pot down uncontested), but I'm probably still calling.