how do they have so many chips already?

I like to believe that I play a solid tight aggressive game early in mtt's. You know, with the occasional double up when some donk calls me down with top pair terrible kicker. Other than that, just waiting for quality starting hands and protecting my stack with the occasional blind steal. Then I look up at the leader board only to find that many players have literally quintepled my stack or more. How do they have so many chips this early in the tournament and are these the great players getting all these chips early, or are the great players playing the tight aggressive game. I am seeing around 15% flops on average. Am I still doing something wrong? How can I get that kind of chip count this early and is it even the right thing to do to try?

In every tourney, there's always at least one table which is full of "pushmongers."

Somebody's gotta win those messes.


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I'm guessing you're playing small buy-in tourneys like me. I usually play $2-$4. And at least on Stars where those get thousands of players, there are surely going to be anomalies. Sometimes these are donks who got lucky, and sometimes they are the good players who were lucky enough to be able to pick off some donks by getting top hands early.

For example, a couple nights ago in the CC invasion, $2 90-player SNG, on like the 3rd hand some guy opened from utg with an all-in. I had aces, and called. The original raiser had already dropped 500 chips in one of the first two hands, so when another player called on the button, we both had about 500 chips left. Flop came, I put in the rest of the chips and the button called again. Original raiser had QTo, button had AQo, and I was on my way to a second place finish.

Sometimes, if you're the good player, you will be the lucky beneficiary of the early donks. Most times you won't but you've got plenty of time to make it up by playing good poker.

When i play in a tourny with 200 or more i never look at the leader board until about the second hour, play ur hands and table and don't worry about other players, u need to take a peek when u get close to cashing, good time to change gears and pick up some extra blinds of the short stacks.

80% of the time the chip leader after the first 30 minutes of a tournament won't make the money at all. To get such a huge stack, they must be all in much more than is healthy in tournament play. So just play your solid game and know that there's a LOT of time left.

depends on the buyin honestly...if it's a small buy-in tourney they are just getting really lucky with marginal hands if the buyin is a bit bigger it might be the same case but it could also be just playing really really good and getting an amazing run of cards...

A lot of players simply feel that if they don't build a big stack early on in small buy in MTT's then why bother to sit and try to build little by little when they can enter another if they bust. You will see this a lot in freerolls. I often play this way in freerolls. I'm not going to invest a ton of time trying to build for 3 hours only to go out before the bubble. I'd rather go out early and enter another game then bubble.

It's when seven people at a table go all in at the same time, and one guy ends up with ten thousand chips. All while you sit there grinding it out.

And yeah, it depends on the buy in of the tourney, it usually happens with the freerolls, really small buyins, and tournaments with points.

don't worry about it. most players with big stacks at the start, don't win it, or go that deep in the tournament. as long as you have a good size stack for the table your at. you are doing just fine.

You shouldn't pay much attention to that, the most important thing is your stack and the size of the blinds.

It doesn't matter who has the most chips, only thing that matters is who has them all at the end.

just depends if you hit early, lots of people early in a tourny will go all in with 2 pair, if you managed to hit a straight or trips, it's generally an easy double up, most of those people whether donks or lucky, got into good situations early

Yeah alot of the big stacks early on are just the result of a lucky run of cards. I was playing in the DoubleDeuce on full tilt on sunday and saw a player triple his stack on the first hand after throwing his lot in with pocket Ts and getting two calllers with AK and KK. The chump got lucky and ht his third 10 on the turn and took down the pot. However he turned out to be a complete donk and blew his entire stack in about 7 hands by playing every hand uber aggressively. So yeah early leaders usually just got lucky and you rarely see any player lead a tournament from wire to wire

+1

I agree, look at the leader board early, then look at it again after the first break. The people that were on top early won't be there anymore, or will be out already. The early chip lead is just a bunch of all in morons, more times than not.

L0L, I played a game on Absolute once on my friends account and basically didn't care what happened so I kept pushing... after about 2 hours I was 100k over anyone as the chip leader with about 245k then my breaker blew in my house... lol he got a few bucks out of the deal anyways because we had so many chips to sit out with.

Sometimes gambling works better then playing.

The leader board in the first ninety minutes is meaningless.

there are 2 ways to get a monster stack up front.
1. You're incredibly lucky and suck out a ton...which pretty much means you're donk'in it up.
2. You get a great run of cards and idiots keep paying you off. I had a tourney once...and only once where I was flopping full houses, straights, all my pairs were hitting sets, and these tools kept shoving on me and completely walking into it. It was great.

I actually posed this same question at a training site I belong to and I basically got the same feedback. And after watching alot of the pro's replay tourney videos...it's completely right. Just play your best and dont worry about the early leaders...they're usually gone before the money anyway

Check the leader board after about 20 hands. All those players that built a huge stack are typically gone or eliminated. Luck only gets you so far.

Hi ,
Well most of the time you have tbls where evry goes all in , this is where the monsters get there stacks...just a thought!

Hey I forgot to mention you have to consider there are some good players out there that play freerolls too...

I notice this alot too. I mean sometimes I haven't even gotten to play a hand like I'm at 1500 chips, and someone is already leading with 12,000. It really bugs me in MTTs. I'm a chronic shortstack, always near the bubble. This is one of the parts of my game I'm really trying to improve somehow.

Heh, I've been in tables where 6 out of the 10 people go all in on the first hand. One guy walks out with 9,000 chips. This of course, occurs more frequently in freerolls, especially ones that are available to the public. This is their mindset a majority of the time: I lose and I try again tomorrow or I win and start off with a big advantage.

Don`t worry about the size of the chipleader`s stack. Your benchmark is the average stack. If you stay around the average stack throughout the game, you will be roughly 4th when the Final Table begins, and well placed to challenge for the win.

You don`t have a problem in the early stages as long as you don`t fall much below half the average stack.

this is well thought out and makes a lot of sense. you dont need to be chipleader at any stage except the very last point to win tourney, play solid and the wins will come.

Good advice. I'll try to keep that in mind.

Lots of players will go all in early with marginal hands. When that happens at a table where 4-5 decide the odds are right someone always wins. I think early in a mtt that I don't have a lot of time invested so if I have anything I might draw to I'll join the party. After all you're getting 4 or 5 to one and they can't all have monsters. Usually no one does. If I do hit then I'm set for awhile and can be picky about what hands I play.

I've seen some very very poor players build big stacks early in small buy in tourneys. Usually some calling station that got very lucky. OP if you are only seeing 15% of flops them you are playing too tight. You need to play a wider range of hands competently to be able to win tourneys because you don't have forever to build a stack and eventually get everyone else's chips.

You have to realize that in every tournament, there are going to be people shoving all-in pre-flop and hoping just to get lucky. It happens in every tournament and that is why you see people with massive chip stacks right at the beginning of every tournament. However, most of the time these people will either continue to play crazy or tighten up after they have the chip lead. You need to continue your method of winning however, because unless you are willing to just shove every pot and hope to get lucky right at the beginning of a tournament, it is hard to build a massive chip lead right from the get-go. Good luck at the tables.

Thank you, gents. I have played the odd tourney or two.

In many low buy in tournements many lpayers just move all in with bad hands.
They double up at the beginning but loose their chips as fast as they get them...
Donīt worry about those players!
Just take thier chips away with good hands!

There is no point in worrying about what is happening at the other tables. Nothing you can do about it. Worry about what you can control. Focus on your table and play the strategy that is going to get you the most chips you can with as little risk as possible. Find the balance at each table you find yourself at and at the end of the tournament you will have a better than average shot at holding all the chips.