I usually lose a lot of my stack at the beginning of MTT and I don't know how to play after that.
What do you suggest for me? and what hands is it better for me to play in such a situation?

You can play normally when you have 25 BB or more but you should be aware that maybe players with deeper stacks play loose against you,
of course the shallower your stack is the tighter you should play you should not show weakness in hands you play and you can easily shove with your top pairs,
I don't like shoving pre-flop but that will come very handy if you have monster hands

First I'd like to say that being active in the beginning of tournaments is not a bad thing at all. Not only will it help your table image later in the tournament, the blinds are the smallest and your stack is the deepest. This gives you the chance to raise wider and puts you in a position to win some big pots early on if you're able to catch. This doesn't mean play like a maniac, but opening/3 betting in position, and playing well post flop should make you some chips early on in the long run.

In the event that you run bad or make an ill timed bluff or two, and you find yourself short stacked you should be slowing way down. You're activity level early on will loosen people up to call you, so you want to have a hand you're ready to go with when you're opening or raising off a stack of 15-20 big blinds or less. I'd stick to your pairs 88-99+, ATs+, AQo, AKo. I like to find 3 bet shove spots with the top end of my range when I'm short. You pick up more than just the blinds and hopefully you've spotted someone opening a little too much that you can attack. You're probably going to find yourself in a flip if called and that's just the way tournament poker is sometimes, you gotta win flips (and fade rivers) to win tournaments.


Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by MusterIsBack

I usually lose a lot of my stack at the beginning of MTT and I don't know how to play after that.
What do you suggest for me? and what hands is it better for me to play in such a situation?

Play some cheap hyper turbo SNGs, to get the idea/concept behind SS play.

Once you learn your lesson(s) in these games, you can then apply that type of approach to SS MTT play.

it depends a lot on your positions and whenever you have 10bbs or less you play in the puche and fold phase what does that mean?
ex: and you play hands like (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKo, AQo, AK) always giving All in with 10bbs or less and no raise or call. so that you can return to the tournament.

Originally Posted by MusterIsBack

I usually lose a lot of my stack at the beginning of MTT and I don't know how to play after that.
What do you suggest for me? and what hands is it better for me to play in such a situation?

The meaning of the push strategy lies in the name itself - we either push or fold. For comparison, a mixed strategy involves the presence of ranges of raise / fold, raise / call, limp, open-push, etc. In this article, we will focus on the raise / fold and raise / call ranges. Limp ranges deserve a separate article. When building a short stack raise / fold range, we must be very polar, that is, our strong hands must be balanced by the weak. Medium strength hands are best played simply by pushing.
For example, with a hand like A10o on a BU with 15 bb, we can just suck in. We don’t want to raise with this hand and then call the opponent’s push, risking the end of the tournament and giving BB the player good chances of defense. On the other hand, we want to raise / call with hands like KK, QQ, AK, which will balance raise / folds with worse hands containing blockers.The ability to correctly adjust your tournament strategy when your stack is getting shorter is an essential skill for every successful player. Remember: the shorter your stack, the tighter you should be, and first of all - due to the reduction in your range of opening suited connectors and small pocket pairs.good luck)

A short stack forces you to look for an opportunity to double with a more suitable hand.
But it's best to make the right decisions and try not to lose most of the stack. Do not risk your place in the tournament without having a very good chance of winning.

The most important thing is the effective stack, and if you lost some pots early on, that will usually be your own. When the effective stack get down to around 30-40BB things like setmining become less profitable, and you need to tighten up a bit. When it get down to around 20-25BB you can start to rejam over a normal open raise, and when it get down to 12-15BB you can start to open jam. The exact numbers are up for debate, but just to give an idea.

Also if you are the effective stack, you will have less fold equity, when you jam, because you do not threaten the other players tournament life. So you should probably reduce bluffing a bit, since you are more likely to get called. This is especially the case in bounty tournaments, where you will lock really delicious to other players, if your stack get short compared to your bounty.

With all that being said losing part of your stack early on will happen from time to time, and it is important to not give up and start making silly moves, because a comeback is always possible. However if you find yourself in this situation time and time again, then there is probably some leaks in your deep stacked game, which you need to find and patch.

I think instead of looking at how to play a short stack, you should look into why you're always losing a majority of your stack early in the tournament. That is more of a leak in your game than playing a short stack I would think.

As far as advice playing a short stack, you are just looking to go all in. I would avoid pushing from early position. I try and focus on my position and jam hands when folded to me and I am on button or cutoff. I hope to be able to pick up dead chips without showdown as best I can.

the beginning of the tournament is always very difficult, I think when the blinds are small, you need to expand the range of hands, it increases the chance to increase the pot for the later part of the tournament. Don't be afraid to play aggressively, but don't forget about analyzing your opponents, and always be ready to fold, don't rush to increase the pot))

I recommend to play more tight at the beggining and don't lose chips. The blinds are still small, there is no point to play a lot of hands. Try to play more in position and increase your stack slowly.

Imho starting levels should be playing with less bluff ass possible- your opponents most likely would not believe low bets. If you already run in short stack, it's win or lose situation, best option is practice(like SnG as advised before)