Early MTT Risk

Wetts1012

I dont usually look alot into stats provided by 3rd parties (OPR, SS, etc) - however I was looking at my MTT elimination percentages and wondered about others theories. Here is what brought up the question:

E EM M ML L
3 12 50 20 16 <- My Results
10 20 40 20 10 <- Field %

So as an example I am knocked Out Early (E, or in the first 10% of the field) 3% of the time. Conversly, I make it Late (L, or in the last 10% of the field) 16% of the time.

I looked specifically at 2 numbers that I was surprised at. 3% in the Early stages, and 50% in the 30-70 range.

My typical strategy is Super Tight in E/EM, Open in M/ML, and tight L.

My thoughts: If I open my game up more early (obviously being knocked out early more often), will that put me in a better position to make it through the M stage, where I am currently knocked out 50% of the time?

pkrfce9

nice topic! i'm guessing my stats aren't that far off from this.

tight early then scrambling to get chips to stay alive before you get close to the bubble?

i think your idea has merit. i'd love to see the viewpoints of experienced MTT players on this.

actyper

I would suggest playing loose during the early stages, makes the middle stages a lot easier to play. Especially online, you get knocked out early move onto the next one, or multitabling where you can just close off that table and concentrate on others.

adpro

I haven't played a whole lot of MTT's, but I seem to do well.

I usually try to quickly figure out which people are donks and take advantage of that. Other than that, my game is pretty tight. I do, however, play more starting hands than STT's at the beginning of an MTT, though. Not a lot more, but I like suited connectors in an MTT. Also, the speed the blinds goes up is a large factor in this as well.

I guess the idea is to take a bit of a risk when there are donks at the table that can't fold and when you have decent hands, then play only premium and try to survive.

Either way, like I said, I am not an experienced MTT player and would love to see what some more experienced players say. I'm going to be playing in some more MTT's. This is a perfect topic!!!

herschelw

I generally think that it's best to play tight early. Almost every pro I know plays tight early(even the generally LAG pros). Here's the caveat: you must understand what I and most pros I know mean when we recommend you play tight early. We're not saying play tight like you would early in a sng. Was also arent saying tight passive(prob half the people that think they are tight aggressive are really tight passive). Let me give you an example. When we say tight early we do mean fold AT utg. We dont mean fold 56s if it folds around and you're on the cutoff.

herschelw

Generally players that blind down badly in mid levels and end up short near the bubble are failing to find spots to accumulate ships without a hand. For example, stealing utg or utg+1, stealing from the button or cutoff regularly. I also think they often fail to understand what different stack sizes limit or allow you to do.