MTT play part 1 - Early tournament strategy
An early stage of a multi table tournament can best be described as the period of the tournament for which the blinds remain cheap and the time it takes for the majority of the “fishy” and the soft/loose erratic players to eliminate themselves from the tournament.
It is for these reasons that it is best to play your tightest tournament poker during these early stages many players feel that it is best to play marginal hands while the blinds are still “cheap” .Where as this is the exact reason why if you want to play winning tournament poker you, yourself should only be looking to play the top region on the “premium hand” range many of times during early stages of a tournament. I have seen good players who play solid starting hands such as J-10 be taken out of a tournament during its early stages even after hitting top pair because they have been called by silly hands like 6-3 and the player has hit 2 pair with it.
So therefore it is vital to play a tight style of game for the early stages of a tournament and allow these erratic fishy players to eliminate them selves from the tournament with out possibly taking a sizeable portion of your chips with them first or even knocking you out completely, you have to remember that it is only the top players who get paid and this is essentially the goal you are trying to achieve. I would also advise against bluffing at all in the early stages of a tournament unless the bluff you are making is against one of the tournaments tighter players, and you have both good position and pot odds on the bluff.
The hands I would be looking to play myself in the early tournaments would lie in the top end of the premium hand range hands such as AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, that is nothing to say that even playing these hands you will not get caught out by the odd maniac who is trying his luck with 4-3 but it should help to drastically cut the chance of such an event occurring
Alternatively you could visit some of the poker rooms such as Pokerstars features some of the worlds best professionals who regularly participate in big multi table events, you will be able to also bring on your games just by sitting and watching how these pros work there magic on the table.
In part 2 of this 3 part article I will be going through the necessary changes in your play that are needed to take yourself from early tournament play into middle tournament play.
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