Many players believe in the power of conservative play during the early stages of large MTTs. In fact before I move on, I want to point out that I am certainly not here to pour any cold water on that style of play. One of the biggest dilemmas that tournament poker players face at all levels is which style to adopt whenever they play.
At this moment in time, we seem to be at an impasse regarding which poker style is best to maximize your chances of winning a large MTT. But here is where the dynamic shifts because not all players have the goal of winning the tournament. Sure, they may want to win the tournament but we all know that this isn’t grounded in reality. If you have qualified via a satellite for a few dollars and cashing, or finishing in the money, represents a major return on investment (ROI) then suddenly your priorities can change mid-stream.
There are so many styles that can be successful in tournament poker and in this article and for the next few articles I want to discuss the merits of the conservative approach in MTTs. Players favour this style because it is defensive in nature and it has several strategic advantages.
- It allows you to avoid the early wild stages in most cases with your stack intact
- Many players are eliminated during this phase
- You are nearer to cashing with fewer players left to do battle against
- You are preserving your stack until the blinds become meaningful
During the opening stages of the tournament, the conservative style means that you will only be playing strong hands. Your emphasis and game plan will be to survive until the middle stages. Do not be concerned that your opponents perceive you as a tight playing rock and that when you play that you simply will not get any action.
Most of the time your opponents will either not notice or they simply will not care anyway! These early stages (opening few levels) will be easy for you as the number of decisions that you will have to make will be kept to a minimum. This style of play is one of the best styles to teach for the majority of players and in the coming weeks I want to discuss this style in more depth using actual hand examples to highlight the mechanics and inner workings of the strategy of good solid conservative defensive tournament play.
There are many similarities between MTTs and STTs and in fact the underlying philosophy of solid STT play can be partly transferred across to MTT play. Many experienced players argue that playing defensive poker during the early stages is counter-productive because you miss out on the ‘dead money’. But the point here is to teach a good solid tournament strategy that can be learnt by almost anyone at any level and I will be going into this in some considerable depth in the coming weeks and months.
If you are looking for the best poker room: please check Pacific Poker
No related posts.
