MTT strategy - forget the tourny, concentrate on your table.

Hello all.

Recently I have started playing MTT again.

Now if I`m saying something here that is widely know, ooooooop`s, sry

Here goes. What I have started doing when I play a MTT, early to middle to late middle stages, is to forget my position in the tourny overall.

I will only focus on the table I am at.

The reason I have started to do this is because I was finding myself starting to get anxious when I check the leaderboard, that is if I am 1st or last.

I find by putting my focus on the table only my play is not effected. If u are constantly checking out your position I think u either play tighter, start to push at the wrong time, over play hands, etc.

What do you guys think?

Your M is a much more important factor than your overall position in the tournament, and indeed you overall postition at the table that your on.

Good point though.

I dont look at largest / smallest stack. I do look at the average stack and as the above poster stated your M.

as ^^^ and ^^^ average stack is the thing to keep an eye on, you dont want to get too far behind that, but the chip leader's count is an irrelevance. A 4K lead is just 1 BB a few hours later.

I did play in one MTT though about 18 months ago, where the whole original table was still together at the first break, and the table leader had under the Tournament average. I typed in the chatbox that we're going to have to make a move, as we were playing too tight as a table to stay in contention.

Good point Ron, I think awareness of stack size in the context of the tourney is very important but not something to fixate on. My (rather long) thoughts on it are here

MTT strategy thoughts - Measuring your stack

exactly, i do same thing. when i first started i would like what place im in like 100 times and now i only check on the break and other than that im only focused on my table.

I usually tend to look at how many players are left far to often. I need to stop worrying about making the money and just stick to my game.

OP is probably correct.

I do well late tourneys even if I am below average. The only problem I see in dealing with it one table at a time, is it may tend to calm a necessary aggressiveness at a critical point. In any MTT, you must be willing, at times, to take someone out.

Not sure this makes as much sense written as it does to me.

I'm with the orginal poster. Nothing matters but you and you getting chips, I don't watch the average at all. All I pay attention to are the levels and when I feel like I'll get short. If I have enough chips to play, I'm not going to let the 'average' convince me I need to make a move.

There is no possible way to control what others are doing.There position in the tourney and how they are doing at other tables is completely out of control.The only way to succeed is making the right decisions based on the way the game is at your table.If you make right decisions you will eventually run into the big stacks.What better way to double up than that.

I check out the average stack but am definitely going to stop doing that because my play suffers because of this.

Early on it doesn't matter one way or the other. Everyone is jockeying for position and/or trying to survive.

The middle stages are where you need to watch your Ms and Qs. Later, near the bubble you really need to pay attention. This is where the big fish eat the little fish. Knowing where you're at is critical. Knowing what to do about it is even more so.

Goldog