MTT Strategy -- Tight vs Loose

[Zybomb]

How tight or loose do you play during the early middle and late stages of an MTT? How does this change throughout the tournament?

Does the blind structure (Starting Chips relative to starting blinds / Blind increase times) change how you play at all during the early stages?

[lightfungus]

I start out tight and wade through all the people who are aggressive and are going for broke at the beginning. At least that is what I think. Then later on, say when the level is about 3 or 4 I start playing MY game.

[JDMcNugent7]

I love to start mixxing it up once i get a good amount of chips and it hits level 3. I start limping in with alot of mediocre hands, bluffing to take um down, and making tons when they hit. I still play very aggressive when i get a strong hand tho and it usually works out well for me.

[akajeff]

For me I play tight and win a big pot then usually limp in with hands like 67 suited and 910 to try to hit the nuts and win a big pot. Early I would only go all in withwith AK AA KK QQ and maybe JJ. Later on I play looser. once you reach the first break or 2nd this is where you can start makeing good plays, playing tight and hopefully cash a lot.

[drizzel_121]

i like to play alot of hands when the blinds are small this way you dont lose 150 chips to see a flop just 20 or 30. and scince its no limit raise that baby up if you got somthing good

[SirFWALGMan]

I do pretty well in these (sometimes).. I take a loose-weak stand first. I want to try and hit that weird flop, or the hand that might pay me off. If I get pushed back at I let it go.. I do not try to be too aggressive here. Once I get 1-2 hands that chip me up early then I go into a more tight-aggressive stance. I play the best hands and try and make smaller stacks make mistakes. If they get lucky I have the backup of having already gotten a larger stack and I can make a mistake or two..

I then try and keep ahead of the blinds and stay in the game. I really do not care how I am in the standings for the most part. It is irrelivent to me. I just want to stay as far ahead of the blinds as I can so I can still limp when I want to, etc..

Lately I have been less aggressive on the final table. I let people knock each other out.. each person who leaves gives you more money and at first they are more than willing to knock each other out. Even the huge stacks. If I get blinded down I need to crank up the aggression.. or when it gets down to five left. I then want to steal blinds, chip up, and make my move to first.

[culver boy]

i always play tight. normally that will be the way to play. it is always good to play tight until the blinds start to get overwhelming.. then you can call with hands that have a chance, but arent exactly awesome

[ChipFish]

Answer = "It depends"
(Quality Post #3)

[Gordogg]

I play more suited connectors in earlier positions and call any pocket pair at the beginning of the tournament if it's not raised before me. I try to see cheap flops and make a big, well hidden hand to accumulate a big chunk of chips. This is before I know anything about the table. After observing the table, if it's on the aggressive/loose side I'll tighten up and wait for a hand. If it's tight/passive I'll continue playing my style. I'll steal a little more as well.

In the middle of the tournament my style all depends on my chip stack size in the tournament at the time. I like to tighten up and give myself a chance to make the money if I have a decent chip stack. Once I make the money I loosen up again. But that's just a general strategy I use depending on my situation. I'll loosen up if the table compsition warrants it. If I'm short on chips I'm looking for a hand to double up with. The hand I choose is relative to my stack/BB ratio. If I'm in the top ten chip leaders or so, I'll play a conservative style and try not to risk my chips too often.

The structure of the tourney is important as well. That's why I love PokerStars. They have the best tourney structures in my experience so far.

So much more to say in this general of a question so I'll end this post now before going into late tourney play.

[left68wing]

I generally will play a tight aggressive game. I don't play many mediocre hands but if I'm in the pot I will be firing at it. You'd be surprised how many people will fold if you just keep hammering at pots. Later into tourney's I will loosen up my game if I have a big stack. If I start to tilt... well anything goes.