Guide to Multi Table Tourney Success

Multi-table Texas Holdem NL tournament strategy

To do well or win a multi table tourney you need to, and i often slag people who doing this but you need top be tight. Very Tight. The Following is a basic guide outlining what to do and what not to do in order to play successfull Multi-Table NL Tournament Poker. Sadly this will not win you a tournament, in any tournament a fair amount of luck is involved.

¤ Since the goal is to survive, play very tight. One difference to single table tournaments are that you probably will be moved to other tables and meet other players during the game. This means you will not have the same possibilities to get to know your opponent as in a single table tournament. Unless you previously have notes on them, you will most likely play against totally unknown players. However, take notes during the game! These notes are useful when there are fewer players left and you meet them again.

¤ Even though you are playing very tight, use the fact that the blinds are small. For example, if it is cheap to play small suited connectors, play them! You might hit a straight and small straights are often profitable.

¤ Multi-table tournaments often takes hours to finish. Do not join a tournament if you do not have time to finish it! And do not join it if you do not have the ability to concentrate for a long time.

¤ As said in single-table strategy - IF you are lucky enough to hit AA or KK, do NOT slow play them. Play them aggressively! If you are in early position, raise a couple of hundred. If you are in late position and your opponents have raised, re-raise them with all-in. Hopefully this will eliminate some of them and you want to face as few, but at least 1 opponent as possible. This is to avoid getting beaten by a two-pair or similar.

¤ Your stack of chips will (hopefully) slowly grow bigger, and as you get a greater stack of chips, you can vary your playing more. Still play very tight, but vary your play.

¤ Do not get bothered by if the chip leader would have 5 * your stack. Instead, be happy as long as you are in line with the average stack. Do not panic. You have plenty of time to hit something.

¤ If you are lucky enough to get a big stack early in a tournament, do not become more loose because of that. Instead play even more tight!. You want those chips when the opponents get fewer and the money are closing in.

¤ Avoid getting trapped in a pot by bluffing. If you are in late position and raise (with a weak or average hand) to invoke a bluff, and are getting raised by someone else - consider to fold your hand even if you already put chips in the pot.

¤ Play some occasional hands with weak hands if you have not played in some time. This is to not let other players think you are too tight. If your'e lucky, you will still get a good flop.

¤ If your stack is getting smaller and smaller, you do not want to be consumed by the blinds. You have to gamble. Go all-in on the first pair or A+(any card) you get, except if you are last to play and their are alot of raises/calls. This might save you and double up your stack. If you lose, then try to learn something from it. When you lose, ask yourself these questions:

¤ What did i play wrong?
¤ What could I have done better in order to survive?
¤ Look at the Hand that took you out, and think how you could have played it differently, and learn from your mistakes. So that you dont make the Same mistake again.

¤ If you are in late position and catch an AKs or AK it might be a good idea not to raise or at least not to re-raise the pot. In case you do not hit anything on the flop you have not lost too much, and if you do, noone knows about your strong hand.

¤ Watch out for going all-in on an average hand. Dont go all-in on one pair only. If you "must", at least make sure to have a great kicker (not a good, but a great).

¤ When there are fewer players left, play more hands. Now you can play your average hands and begin to bluff occasionally. Use the power of you position at the table, use the weaknesses you noted on your opponents and play more aggressively.

¤ Never go all-in on connectors like AK or so. Even if you are facing low pair like a 22 you are the odds underdog. Only go or follow an all-in with a pair, the higher the better.

¤ When the tournament are close to "the money", the play usually get a little different. Noone wants to be on place 51 when the money is on place 50. Should this affect your play? Well... you don't want to end up on 50th place, you want number 1. Do not fold your AA just because you want someone else to be 51th. BUT, you should consider folding a slightly above-average hand you normally would have played.

¤ If you make it down to the Last two Read these posts and get an idea of what people do heads up. http://www.texasholdemforums.com/t14...-strategy.html

Well... seeing as i just won an mtt freeroll that had 1287 people in it i have a couple of things to add.

- First of all, i disagree about the dont go all in on connectors A K. A K is a fantastic hand!!! its called big slick for a reason! It is a wonderful hand. If you have chips and want to make it long i would expect you to play A K for 4 times the big blind and call any all ins with it.
---ALSO i disagree about the dont raise with A K in late situations. Yes you should always raise with A K unless you are trying to limp in. A K is great and you dont want people that called with J 10 in the pot because they are not that much of an underdog. If you limp in or call and the flop is K J 10, you would probably figure you have the best hand since you think someone would raise with A Q or K J in that spot. I would advise to always raise 4x the big blind with A K and keep people from playing crap hands to see a flop. If you dont hit the flop make a bluff. If the flop is 8 4 2, you can make a bluff... if someone re raises you know they have a bigger pocket pair or possibly A 8. If they dont hit the flop then they will fold and you will win that pot.

I DO agree with a few things though

- For the first hour of the tourney, play extremly tight. Dont play Q J os or A 9. These hands are weak. chance are someone who is really loose might call with J 10 and he would only be a 3:2 underdog to ur A 9. Maybe even sit out a couple of hands and watch how others play. When i won the freeroll i was lucky to only switch tables one time during the whole tourney. I saw a lot of people come in and out and i was able to read them pretty well. ( i also turn off images on pokerstars because i think it helps me... no distractions)

- dont look at who has the most chips or what the average is for the first 2 hours. Everything Is off cue, you see someone who went all in 4 hands in a row have the chip lead and all the sitters skew the avg. Just play ur game and do ur thing. If the tourney is for money dont look at when payouts start... just play to win! When i won the freeroll, i did not have chip lead til final table... i just played my game and stayed below or at average until it mattered at the end.

- Do not get blinded to death!!! if you have 5x the big blind or less its time to pick a hand and go with it. I like any ace high, or suited connectors in this situation (sure u might be an underdog but it has lots of possibilities) one thing i do not like when ur really short stacked is low pocket pairs. This sounds crazy but think about it. if you go all in for 2x the big blind with 44 and 4 people call, someone is going to hit a higher pair on the flop. the only thing you could hope for in that situation would be trips.. and i think it isnt a good idea to hold on to 2 outs for ur life.

- feed off the biggest stack at your table. If he is really loose, just wait for a monster and let him double you up. If he is a tight player.. play a little looser and try and bluff him out of pots. Also if he is in a hand be aware that he probably has something decent.

- if you make the final table.. play smart. All the players at the final table arent just lucky all iners.. they actually know what they are doing. Try and get a read on them. See how they play and adjust accordingly. (when i was on final table i noticed that the person to my left would bet 1/10 the size of the pot on the flop when they were bluffing. I just re raised them and everytime they folded. when they checked on the flop they had a hand.)

Like Zaphor said... this is no guarantee to making a final table or winning. We simply just put how we play and maybe you will take a second and look how you play and compare and see if you could make any changes. Good luck to all and many monster pots!

Ship you bragging now? haha, I'm just messing with you. Nice lists both of you. I do agree and disagree with some of the things both of you say. For me, MTT are divided up into time slots/number of players left. These different amounts determine how you play. Of course you can't set any specifics because you should always determine how you play on your table and opponents, but I feel that a crucial time in a MTT is the very beginning. I think this is the best and most important time to bulid and secure your chip stack, though any chips are never secure. I think you should play a little looser in at least the cards you start with. If you have a semi-weak hand, never call raises just to see the flop and never play the absolute crap hands, but other than that, try to see the many flops for very cheap. This has almost always worked for me. Later in the tourney, I tend to play much tigher, especially when it comes down to where the money starts. Then, the third time slot, is the final table if you happen to make it there. Here, there is usually a lot of all-ins and the blinds are obviously very high. You should only play the premium hands. And when you do get and play these hands, raise a good amount preflop. Usually if you steal the blinds, thats a decent pot. Don't start trying to steal blinds with bluffs at the final table because you don't want to risk it for such a small pot.

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cky12 - PokerStars
cky12 - FullTilt

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Nice to see players taking a lot of time over their posts - I agree much more with Ship than Zaphor on this. In large MTT's (as opposed to 2-4 table tourneys) one of the key things is not that you get moved arround a lot but the fact you get to spend far more hands with the same people than in anything else online - you could easily play 70+ hands against the same 2-3 people and that gives you time to make excellent reads on them. Take notes from at least 30 min into tourney on most players so if you meet again you will remember it. You can get a lot of chips for free by out playing solid players through sophisticated reads on them.

Yes tight passive is the way to play for at least the first hour or two but you must adapt to reads/ position and I have no problem betting 3*bb on A6os in the dealer seat 30min in if SB and BB are solid tight players and everyone has folded to me. Similarly I have no problem calling a small raise with trash against someone who overvalues strong starting hands.

If you are able to do several things at once - then when there are only 4 or so tables left start watching some of the other tables as well as playing to get reads on other players.

My own feeling is that come final table many players are very tired and dont play near there best and you can few it as pretty much a standard 1 table sng although everyone is far more looking for a good all in (AA, KK preflop or calling someone they think is blind stealing with AJs) and otherwise not much bluffing/ risk taking goes on aside from blind stealing. These tendancies can be exploited. Pre final table most players show a dislike from seeing the flop - they often will fold or bet big preflop to avoid this - again this can be exploited.

Interestingly i reckon the strategy for 2-3 table tourneys is quite different from either case and whilst you playing pretty tight is effective - aggressive/ loose play also can work very well. Whilst it is hard to keep consentration to play that style in a big tourney in a 2-4 table tourney it can be easily done. Also i have found on PP 5+1 3 table tourneys it is very hard to finish in the money with much less than twice starting chips come final table but very easy with twice starting chips or higher so I am willing to take some risks to get near that mark if I have not had any breaks and there are say 15 players left at that point. Where as in 10+1 2 table tourneys I can do just fine with 3/4 of my original chip stack come final table except for when the two players after me play in a very aggressive/confrontational manner.

Anyway good posts all - particularly Kikolo

Wow! What great and helpful posts. Usually when I get in a multi-table tournament I invariably finish in the top 10 percent, but that doesn't get me anything prize wise. There is some solace to be taken knowing that I out lasted perhaps a thousand people, but when I realize that I won just as much as the person who was the first to go out it really takes a shine off that top 10 percent finish. I have no problems playing tight so the advice of playing tight in the beginning of a tournament suits my style. One way I like to pick up blinds or maybe try a semi-bluff is to use Doyle Brunson's theory about putting an opponent all in. If there is a situation where it comes down to me and another player and I have quite a few more chips than he does, and I have a fairly strong hand, I will put him/her all in. It really is amazing how quickly a lot of people will fold when you put their tournament life at stake. If it happens that they have a strong hand and win the hand, at least I am still in the tournament. Annie Duke has said that if you don't get your hand caught in the cookie jar every now and then you are not playing good poker. I tend to agree with that. When I see a lot of people at the beginning of tournaments going all in frequently it reminds me of the saying, "A dog that sh*ts fast doesn't sh*t long. Thanks for the previous posts, hopefully they will help me break that 10 percent barrier.

GOOD POSTS .im still fairly new at online poker and texas holdem but have learned agood bit by reading the post here .keep up the good post .thank you hair brain