Trouble early in MTT

I am having a problem in the very early stages of some MTT. I have a really good hold of betting in the later stages when the blinds are higher but I seem to make more mistakes in the beginning when the blinds are like 10/20 I play way to many big pots at this level as my bet sizing seems inappropiate on every street. I'm posting as kinda of a humilation punishment to myself to get me to stop making the same mistakes. Anyone else have this problem and how did you change it.

when the blinds is low,please play carefully.Play with good cards and play chance cards (such as 89s ) in late position.

I like playing a lot of hands early but only if I can get in cheap. Remember, you can't bluff bad players as they don't pay attention. I tend to fold draws early unless it's for the nuts vs multiple players. Early on my strategy is lose small pots win big pots. Hope this helps good luck.

I have the same problem. When the blinds are low, I like to get into the action and hope to get lucky.

Focus --- don't try to do anything dumb. Play attention to the board and take it from there. IMO, one of the hardest stage in poker is the beginning states due to the blinds being so small, so people are more likely to play any two cards.... You just got to know when to hold them and when to fold them.

The key to this is to not play big pots with week hands. During this stage, I like to play my good hands aggressively as well; don't let someone crack your aces.

Players are more willing to invest 150 to crack your aces verses investing 4000 to hope to get lucky at the later stage. Good luck.

Its more like a cash game in the early levels. Thats why the cash game players have no problems with collecting chips early, but play poorly in later stages when they are short and the tourney players vice versa...

You are better off saving chips for when the blinds are higher.Just play premium hands early and stay out of trouble and let most of the fish kill each other off.

if you arent playing profitably early then just tighten up heaps.

One strategy that taught me well is trying to register for a tournament late if at all possible so you simply skip the beggining rounds where 90% of the players that are going to lose lose, therefore skipping all the skruff.. This also taught me how the first rounds are not necesarry to play any pots at all unless deemed worthy because too many fish hop in early with guns blazing and never even make it past the bubble

No deliberately late revving is bad

Chronical23 said:

One strategy that taught me well is trying to register for a tournament late if at all possible so you simply skip the beggining rounds where 90% of the players that are going to lose lose, therefore skipping all the skruff.. This also taught me how the first rounds are not necesarry to play any pots at all unless deemed worthy because too many fish hop in early with guns blazing and never even make it past the bubble

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Gives the rest of the field to much of an advantage if you register to late..How many have you won or final tabled when registering late ?

Poker is imo a game of information, the more info you have got the better decisions you will make.

So just tighten up early, get your info and use it in later stages.

A normal raise of two and half times or three times the big blind will not be respected. If you're gonna raise early in the tournament go big or stay at home. I don't see anything wrong with big pots at an early stage, provided your heads up, and don't have 3-9 players in the hand with you.

aa88wildbill said:

A normal raise of two and half times or three times the big blind will not be respected. If you're gonna raise early in the tournament go big or stay at home. I don't see anything wrong with big pots at an early stage, provided your heads up, and don't have 3-9 players in the hand with you.

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no no no no, raising massive with an extremely narrow range just makes you way easier to play against, definitely not optimal as it narrows the range you get called by drastically

On MTT I tend to try buy in late. Maybe stage 4 or 5. Due to the exact same reason. Sometime going in more pays off. But you always get those people that go in with hands like 10,4 and they manage to win the pot. So if you can buy in late and save yourself from that then maybe this is a good idea. Works for me.

i like to play early but not a stupid amount and i try to make raises that arent really raises like bbis 20 raise to 45 just to try and get control of the action and if someone gets stupid its really easy to fold. and i dont go past the flop unless i fully intend to go to the river. dont try to get lucky other than the luck of hitting a flop,flop or drop early the range of the players is to wide open here

Don't play junk hands ever (except to steal, which you'll be doing vs nits with almost everything from the button). Speculative hands are ok to play in the early stages, and I am a firm believer in playing a loose double up or bust strategy early (if I'm going out might as well go out after a half hour rather than 3), but in general you want to keep the cost of playing laggy at minimum. Try not to play OOP as much as possible, limp into some pots and minraise into others (your limping range is speculative hands that can take down multiway pots when they hit, though you wanna raise some of those as well). C-bet pots you can take down safely (never for more than 2/3 pot), but for Christ's sake, don't be 2 or 3-barreling almost any spot or chasing down expensive draws, it drains your stack. And that is your tournament life.

As for the cash game comparison: Yeah it's kinda like a cash game in early stages, but your edge is smaller. You can't reload so you only have your starting stack and that's it, and the effective stacks are always smaller than cash because most people are gonna be hovering around 50-60bb after a few rotations.