Late registration

roberto51

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When is the best time to enter a tournament? Register before the tournament starts, halfway through late registration, or maybe in the last minute of late registration? Or maybe it doesn't matter at all?
 
dreamer13

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The theoretical advantage is the proximity of the prize zone. Fewer hands must be played to receive a payout. In practice, having to work with a short stack can put you in a bad position. You need to have a deep understanding of strategy for playing under ICM pressure and with multiple blinds.Don't ignore late registration completely. It helps to get the required load for the session and maintain the average buy-in. The main thing is to minimize situations where late entry into the game becomes unprofitable.
 
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oskarsbaumanis2

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will depend on the blind length of the tournament
blind up to 5 min, better to start from the beginning
 
Pokerpoet2

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Personally I like to start Playing with the majority of players right from the start. but if there is late registration I would have to look at all sorts of things before I entered a game, Blind size is one of the biggest factors, if you start with 1,500 chips and the Blinds are already at 300/600 any hand you play will be a potential all-in situation.
Joining any Tournament late means you have lost valuable information on how players react to Limpers or raisers from certain positions, So it could be a coin toss right from the start.
Have I joined a Tournament late? Yes I have, but I certainly don't make a habit of it.
 
Mauricio Perrotta

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It depends on the tournament, if it is a slow tournament you can enter until the end and you will have a chance of winning some money, if the tournament is a turbo one you should enter from the beginning
 
Mag_P1e

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Personally, I always register for tournaments in advance because I like to play when your chips weigh less. In late registration and rebuys - less than 50 (40 in very rare cases) BB I do not sit.
 
MishkaZL

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In most cases, I register before the start. I don't like to register when the game is already running. Moreover, I never register if there are only a few minutes left before the end of late registration.
 
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odonob

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Late registration is very risky as often you will not have a big enough stack to play with and will usually get knocked out within a few hands. If it’s a very long tournament however then early registration will sap your concentration and make it harder tomfpgrind on for a long time. It all depends on the tournament format. As a rough estimate I would take 30 mins before late reg ends as a good balanced entry point. Enough to take a few hits to your stack and enough to play and see some flops without risking all your stack.
 
Igor Popadyk

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depends on the prize zone, the stage of the tournament and your skill of playing with a small stack, in theory, you can enter in late registration and try to get promoted by playing push, and then move on to the map, but as for me at the beginning of the tournament there are more weak players
 
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steve01991

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for me, i like being there at the start, you can pick some tells how players handle situations.
 
Gallarado777

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the sooner you register for the tournament, the better you collect chips from weak players. Recently, there will be few people left with a bad game and you log in, you will have few chips and it will be more difficult for you to start playing and resist aggressive play
 
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fundiver199

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When players bust, the value of each chip goes up, because there are now less people, who can reach ITM. This is also known as ICM. So by entering late you do sort of get a "discount", because you have outlasted some opponents by simply not being there. You also save time, which might be important, if you are a tournament grinder. For tournaments, that start very deep like 150-200BB, usually not much happen during the first blind levels. So maybe its fine to miss out on those and come in, when a starting stack is 60-70BB or so. Especially if you are not so familiar with deep stacked play.

However in a PKO money will have been taken out of the price pool, because some players have already claimed bounties. And this tend to be more important than ICM, so in a PKO there is no reason to enter late other than maybe not having time to play, when the tournament begin, and/or spotting a tournament, that will have a significant overlay. Like the price pool is $1.000, and players have only contributed $750 two minutes before the end of late registration.

And even in normal MTTs there are clear disadvantages to registering late. If you are a winning player, you will have less time to find good spots, and if you enter very short like 10-15BB, your skill edge might not be enough to overcome the rake, even taking the higher ICM-value of chips into account. If you are mostly playing for fun, you get less entertainment for your buy-in investment, when you enter late and maybe only get to play a few hands, before you bust. If you think, moving all-in preflop with 10-15BB is great fun, then you can just play a Spin n Go or other hyperturbo SnG instead of a big MTT.

So to sum it up for PKOs the best strategy is to be there from the beginning or at least enter as early as possible. For regular tournaments its less clear, since there are both advantages and disadvantages of entering late. And of course this also apply, if you consider reentering to a tournament, which allow this. In a PKO you should pretty much never reenter, unless you run into some big cooler like set over set very early in the MTT. But in regular MTTs you can reenter, if you want to, maybe down to around 30BB or so. After that I would usually be done, unless there is likely to be an overlay.
 
Iryna Stryzheuskaya

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I don't like tournaments with very long late registrations.
 
Leandro6803

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For me the best time is before the start of the main tournament if it is a reward tournament where there are more chances to collect the cash rewards.
 
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canbora

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I think personal goals and standards have to come into play which I could elaborate further on...

But in short honestly. Register as late as possible. Register when there's like 10 to 12 BBS left. Every buy in into a tournament must be treated like you're buying into a new tournament. If you can wait right up until the registration ends that means that's the same as lasting until then. It's the same exact thing. Doesn't matter if you were in since the beginning. You're there now and that's what matters. And when you enter early the chips mean less. Even if you busted somebody the first hand it doesn't take very many blind increases for the money you won from cleaning somebody out to meaning nothing more than winning just a moderate size pot. Unless it's a pko of course. In most mtts busting out three entry level players is almost The buy-in. Falls just short. If it's a progressive knockout and they already had had bounties on them, well then that's even bonus. You may be able to knock out one person and get your buy-in back, or more.


If I'm playing a regular pko I try to come in somewhere between around 50 and 60 BB's. But being that it's a regular pko I have no problem being there in the very beginning because if you bust somebody out that's immediate money. I'm perfectly fine with that I just don't end up doing it in practice that often. Because every tournament I enter in my goal is to win. And if it's a progressive knockout I know that Knocking bigger players out later will give me all of the bounties that they have already won. So it doesn't make any difference. But to give a clear black and white, yes or no answer, if it's a pko you should be there to beginning. I think that's good advice.

If it's a regular MTT or if it's a mystery bounty MTT most especially!.... I wait right up until the very last second. 10 BB's. The first appropriate spot I shove all in. Any pocket pair, any ace, any suited high cards like king queen suited. I shove in. If I steal, I steal. I move on to the next hand, rinse and repeat. If somebody calls me and I win, then I double up, now I have some working capital. If somebody calls me and I bust, I lose and I move on to the next tournament.
 
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ADRI7HO

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In most cases, it is best to register at the beginning of the tournament when the stack is still deep.
In such cases, there are more opportunities to play, but sometimes it happens that it is good to register before the registration closes if the tournament is close to the ITM, but this is very rarely the case.
 
kaynbergo

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I almost always start playing a tournament from the very beginning, but in rare cases, if I didn't have time to register, I log in at the end of registration. From the very beginning I'm more likely to catch a good combination and increase my stack
 
0546474

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As always, it all depends on many factors such as the speed of bb increase or your playing style!!! You must enter the game with so many bb that you feel comfortable playing!!!
 
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Depend the time of registration if its just 20minute you could start the gane but if its 2hours registration i think 30 minute before the end of regiatration could be good.....but when you love playing poker you start all game
 
Liedust

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It always depends on what the blind levels are and the type of the tournament. For example, if it is an elimination bounty tournament, it is always convenient to start from the beginning. Greetings and good hands.
 
10gerka

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It depends on the blinds at that moment, I think the minimum to play is to have 20 blinds, 'below this I think it would not be a good option as there is no play and you have to go all-in more often.
 
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Is there any mathematical proof to any of those theories?
 
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I have strategies with 25 BB, in that case it's how you know how to defend your chips to double them.
 
IADaveMark

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Is there any mathematical proof to any of those theories?
No more than there is mathematical evidence/proof about the thousands of different poker players and their respective abilities and strategies.
 
MK_

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Well that all depends on the structure, late reg and so on, but for a normal tourney structure I normally reg a little late. Nothing much usually happens in the early stages anyway😎👍
 
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