MTT Tips

[Robiniue]

How do you play during the early levels of NLHE tournies? Do you open your game up for the cheap blinds, or do you play your normal game? I am more of a tight player who normally plays NL short handed ring games and looking for some multi table tourny tips.
Thanks,

[BPark16]

I tend to play tighter in the earlier stages. There isn't enough chips in the pot to try and steal, and you just slowly bleed yourself.

Look at the 2 examples. 2k start stack.
Player A plays tight, and gets a double up. Say he lost a few blinds due to folding and has 1900 chips. He doubles up to 3800.
Player B plays a little looses, loses a few small hands, then gets a double up. His stack was 1400, and he doubles up to 2800.

Which player would you like to be?

[bakreni12]

play very tight in early level of game open wide range in midle end good luck

[supernuts]

play extremely tight through the whole tourney if its online.

[TheHaversham]

Depends very much on the buy-in level. At the smaller stakes, the pool is so full of fish early on, and by the time antes kick in they will have been swallowed by sharks. Do you want to wait to accumulate chips vs sharks, or take advantage of all the chum sitting right at your table on hand #1? I have found success by playing, for the most part, the opposite of the rest of my table. If I'm at a loose table, I'm the tight guy. If I'm at a tight table, I'm the loose guy.

But, in general, tighter is better early on due to the fact that pots aren't worth as much at that stage (doubling up on hand #1 is nowhere near as meaningful as doubling up at the bubble). When the money starts getting handed out, you have to be able to sense the gear changes in your opponents and react accordingly.

[RNG]

Tight early because there aren't any antes. Then its all about adjusting depending on your stack.

[NuGHuFFeR]

Some players like to play loose early to try and gain a big chip stack then slow down, so that way they either go out early or are in pretty good shape to run deep... this way they feel they are saving themselves from wasting time to just sit there folding and folding to end up bubbling. So they hit early and then tighten up and run deep, or just go out early and play another game or try again next time. AND when you get a big chip stack you have room to try and steal blinds and stuff once that stage of the tourney arrives.

or

Most agree that it is better to play tight because chips in the first blind levels aren't worth as much as they are when the blinds get larger. For example: blinds are 10/20 and someone raises UTG+2 3xBB and you 3bet to 9xBB OTB and everyone folds, you win 4.5BBs profit, which equals 90 chips. Now if you did that when the blinds were 100/200 you win 4.5BBs profit, and that is 900 chips... See the difference?

So I think most players play tight early on, and once the blinds go up, then they open up their rane slightly to adjust for stealing the blinds, etc.

I like to switch it up and use both styles depending on how I feel, which probably isn't a good choice. You should stick to the style that works best for you(ie: most profitable), and your style of play. Also, it depends on the payers you are playing against, I believe if the whole table is playing loose, then you should tighten up &&& if the table is playing tight then you can loosen up.

[fatcrap]

the biggest tip i can give you for MTTs is that 15-25bb effective stack sizes are perfect for 3 bet restealing from the blinds. dont tell anyone

[NineBirds]

play tight throughout the entire tournament

[LCDaBoss]

Gotta have that off and on switch if you ask me.