Early tournament chip lead

[themrsmith]

I always find that when I get the early chip lead in a tournament I tend to bleed chips when it comes close to the money bubble.

 

[arbahool]

i think it's not worthy risking early in the tournament...there are small blinds and no antes so pot is not big enough to be worthy of risking your chips...but if you get strong hand play it on your own,build a big pot and try to take it

 

[orsino12]

some of these free rolls you always get people that goes all in. to me if they go all in with rags and win. that tells me that they are not very good poker players. if i have rags if there is more then two people bets big or go all in i might call then i'm thinking that there is two people are sharing cards.

freerolls are a completely different animal from the tourneys you pay to enter and I play them completely differently.

Regular tourneys I like to see a lot of flops early with speculative hands that are suited or connected. When you hit big you usually get paid, but I generally don't play them out of position or to bets higher than 3BB. They are for speculating, not throwing your chips away against large bets. With big hands like AQ or AK I'll raise, but if facing a raise I won't re-raise, just see the flop. Big pairs are for aggressive play.

Freerolls I tend to play super tight early on, folding just about anything, not even limping, but play high premium hands super aggressive. The 100k's were perfect examples, people would shove with literally any 2 cards so I stayed out of the way unless I had AQ, AK, JJ, QQ, KK, AA then I would be the shover. Even with AA UTG it was automatic, I would get called 95% of the time, often by more than 1 person. It was more of a time invested vs. reward thing, I try to get big early since it takes about 90 minutes to the $ and depending on the time of day it would start at just $0.12- $.30, but if I hit 4000 chips the money was pretty much guaranteed, then it's a matter of working on up the levels. Not until you get down to 100 players does it resemble "regular poker".

 

[erysett]

you should take risk when your stack is low, try to play as much as you can at the beggin of the tournament when the big blind is small and wait to hit the card

 

[rlzaleski]

Depends on the risk/reward. limping and squeezing when you are sitting 5-10x most stacks and it's like 1% of your stack to do so usually works out. It's just easy to get in trouble. But when I see something crazy from a super big stack I just shrug, especially if there wasn't any re-raising preflop. Generally if I get something big I make them pay by re-raising and just make sure I'm making good decisions. The tight ones who got lucky will likely have a premium hand.

So long as you maintain some respect and can get away from hands it's fine I suppose.

I generally mix it up, maybe play pretty aggressive and push people around for 2-3 rounds, rile everyone up. Key is to have a plan before you squeeze / raise, either be willing to stack off or just fold when they play back. Then sit back for a round or two till I catch something and usually get someone to hero call with a weak A or KQ or something.

 

[arbahool]

Freerolls are a completely different animal from the tourneys you pay to enter and I play them completely differently.

Regular tourneys I like to see a lot of flops early with speculative hands that are suited or connected. When you hit big you usually get paid, but I generally don't play them out of position or to bets higher than 3BB. They are for speculating, not throwing your chips away against large bets. With big hands like AQ or AK I'll raise, but if facing a raise I won't re-raise, just see the flop. Big pairs are for aggressive play.

Freerolls I tend to play super tight early on, folding just about anything, not even limping, but play high premium hands super aggressive. The 100k's were perfect examples, people would shove with literally any 2 cards so I stayed out of the way unless I had AQ, AK, JJ, QQ, KK, AA then I would be the shover. Even with AA UTG it was automatic, I would get called 95% of the time, often by more than 1 person. It was more of a time invested vs. reward thing, I try to get big early since it takes about 90 minutes to the $ and depending on the time of day it would start at just $0.12- $.30, but if I hit 4000 chips the money was pretty much guaranteed, then it's a matter of working on up the levels. Not until you get down to 100 players does it resemble "regular poker".

so true,in that tourney you can easily cashout just need to be patient at the begining and slowly build your stack.And as you said when you get 4k-5k you should be able to get cash

 

[zeliduuur]

At the beginning of the tournament I do not risk , play tight , then gradually start to change the style of the game.
But this depends on the tournament , and it and the structure.

 

[6bazzer]

In cash tournaments i play tight, but often call with speculative hands.
In freerols with good hand play very aggressively

 

[BogdanStark]

I'am not sure, but sometimes my destiny whisper to me: hey dude, go all-in! (in those moment I had pocket 55) ... and I do it!

Try to hear your heart, or play tight...do not play something between, you should lost your pot!

 

[Ljuk358]

I play tight at the beggining of tournament, because when I introduce how can I take lot of chips when is blinds little bit high, it's still easier way as go all in or playing lot of game with fishs and hope you win...

 

[ribaric]

If you play hyper turbo MTTs then you need to get early chip lead but in regular MTTs is best to be tight in early stage esspecially in freerolls

 

[dudu10grande]

It depends on how you want to behave in a particular tournament , in some playing tight early , just waiting value and other playing looser , with more speculative hands.

 

[BPEPFPDP]

That's depends on structure of tourney, if some freerolls and structure normal i play very tight early then when blinds goes-up i play more loose and loose with wider range of hands. When i played some sng with turbo and hyper-turbo structure i play very aggressive, and when you cheapleader you just push all-in with any trash to put pressure on the table and steal blinds - it's very effective weapon

 

[arv]

When I get lucky and build a massive chip lead early my style of play changes. I try to protect my big stack and attack only the smaller stacks. I stop taking risks and usually am able to make the FT where my strategy changes again.

 

[dejan85]

yes i am for that,you can try if you winn you have adventage.....

 

[butterstoch]

usually i try to get a read of the table, if a lot of checks are going around then i try and take the pots. Also try to isolate any player raising a lot of hands

 

[Miketheman190]

Wait to take any risks. See the flop cheap n get out still cheap. With nothing. Or get a good hand. There's usually callers trying that will risk it to get ahead themselves. Take advantage of you're first really good hand

 

[Anjo]

I do not take unnecessary risks in any part of the tournament.
I understand that everything has a price.


I do not like to pay dearly!