What are peoples thoughts on early tournament strategy? I am new to the tournament world and are looking for suggestions. Since when you first start a tournament, the blinds are low and have more of a chip stack to work with, would you take this time to gamble more and try to accumulate more chips or play tighter as their are usually more wild players at this stage of a tournament (specially at lower stakes).
With such a huge amount of play throughout the entire tournament, this type of tournament becomes, at least for me, one of the most profitable types of tournaments that can be dragged over a long session. But there are a few specific things about deep stack tournaments that give you an edge over your opponents. And I will try to list them in this article.
Also, you should prepare for a long grind with short 5 minute breaks. This means that in order to win such a tournament, you need to stay at the top for virtually the entire day of the game. If you are not used to long tournaments, then you better reconsider your participation in a tournament with a deep stack, at least until you get used to playing on large fields. A single mistake can send you out, but if you've spent 8 hours grinding a tournament, a mistake like this can knock you out of the game without a dollar in your pocket. Keep this in mind when you get to the later stages of one of these tournaments.Raise size. When you open, you should usually stick to the standard open-raise size early on: 3x or 4x is fine for the first few hours of play. But when you reraise with premium hands, it is preferable to bet more than the standard 3-bet. While a standard 60-chip 3-bet open-raise can go up to 180-250, I personally prefer to 3-bet my 300-400 chips. Raising to 250 and you invite the remaining players at the table to join the game and beat your aces; you still have 4,750 chips hanging after your standard open-raise, and if anyone else wants to turn in, it won't cost them anything to call your bet.
But with such a larger 3-bet, your opponents will have a much harder time calculating the included odds, and it will also be more difficult for your opponents to bet the flop while hunting for a draw; when there are 500 chips on the table, you have to make a continuation bet of 300-500 in order not to go into an overbet, while with 800 chips on the table, your continuation bet can reach 500-800 chips, which will obviously make your opponents think whether it's worth taking the risk for a draw and your monsters won't be run over.Hand Range: In the early stages of a tournament, I look at the flop with any pocket pair, any suited ace and most suited connectors, or over 45 offsuit connectors with any bet that represents less than 2% of my starting stack (100 chips) and hopefully so that I will flop a monster. I rarely raise myself; only with large pairs and AK; and with these hands I try to isolate myself. I only 3-bet with three hands: AA, KK and QQ and that's it; AKo and JJ are not in my 3-betting range, especially early in the deep stack. I also only 4-bet with AA / KK;