Early MTT....late pos...no limpers...good but not great hand

Crystal1303

I find this one the hardest spots in No-limit holdem and would like to hear other opinions on the subject.

OK here's the scenerio

First or second round in the MTT
Late position
No limpers or raisers
No info on any players

Ill break hands down into a couple of categories:
A. Small pockets pairs....22-88
B. Decent face cards...ie...QK, A10
C. Suited Connecters...56-89

Ideally, "since your hand is more than likely best", should u raise and take down the tiny blinds or at least try to build a pot, or limp and try to make a hand or throw away your hand cheap if u miss??

Thanks for any suggestions

m_dolens

this really depends on your table image and the type of players you're playing against. are they likely to fold to your preflop raises? then feel free to steal the blinds with almost any hand (in an unopened pot in LP). are they mostly loose and will call almost anything? then you might not want to make a pointless attempt to steal the blinds. it depends slightly on your hole cards, but more so on the specific players.

to answer your question more specifically, i'd look to steal the blinds with any of the card categories you listed (and possibly even worse cards - in the right scenario). however, it is only the first or second round of the MTT, so stealing isn't necessarily "profitable" at this stage yet. i would normally wait at least until the third or fourth blind level (i'm assuming we're not talking turbos here).

Unknown

A raise

B KQ raise, A 10 raise or fold

C fold

don't ever limp.

blackmagicz

Late position no one opens raise anything...keep in mind your table image and also think about the +ev of your hand. Is there a point to steal blinds this early, are people going to fold in the blinds this early to a raise.....

A small thing to think about to when stealing is something someone told me a while back while playing tournies, if no one has come in yet to the hand and you are in late position, it is very likely that the blinds have a decent holding (based on probability) so be careful as well. I am not saying it happens 100% but it is something to think about as well that early on.