Poker Tournament Strategy
Multi table tournaments are very big right now in online poker. Players love the idea of risking just a small portion of money for a chance to win a much larger prize in the end.
These tournaments might take a few hours to finish, but can prove to be highly profitable if you know how to approach them. Your MTT strategy skill level will soon become above average giving you a guaranteed edge over your opponents.
Early Aggression
When you are early in an MTT tournament it is vital that you focus on being very active. You want to be making more steal attempts here and playing a lot more hands with the bad players. One of the main things that you need to focus on when you are starting out in an MTT is that there are going to be bad players giving their money away to the stronger players.
Since there are these bad players who are just giving away their money, why not be the one to take it? As you advance deeper into the tournament chances are your opponents will be stronger. Why not collect as many chips as you can by being very active with the obviously bad players?
Middle Stage Adaptations
It is very important that you change your game when you advance to the middle stages of an MTT. Once the blinds have increased to the point that calling or making a raise is risking a decent portion of your stack you need to change gears.
Instead of playing the looser range of starting hands that you had in the early stages and being very aggressive against the bad players you now have to tighten up and start to play only your more premium hands.
You will not have the winning hand enough of the time in the later stages to be able to see the flop with suited connectors and small pocket pairs. Doing this would force you to go bust in no time since the blinds are so big compared to your stack. Sticking to the top end premium hands will work out best in the long run in the middle stage of an MTT.
Pop the Bubble
The bubble is when there are just a few more players left in the tournament to be eliminated before everyone makes it into the money. By controlling the bubble you will be better set up to place even higher in the tournament once you have made it through the bubble.
Loosen up on the bubble since players are worried about losing just before making money and you will have tons of chips folded to you.
The bubble isn't just when players are entering making money. It can also be considered a bubble when the amount of money you make for placing slightly better is coming up. If there is a 50% jump from going out immediately as compared to surviving another three spots then you should be loosening up when your opponents tighten up.
It is always very important to keep track of how many players are left and what the pay structure is in relation to that.
Remember that all it normally takes is one good finish in a big MTT to make playing quite a few worth wild. As long as you stay focused you should be able to place in the money a large majority of the time and even place high in the money on a regular basis.
