I had taken a pseudo-hiatus from playing online tournaments since I played in one of the smaller WSOP events this summer. I’m not sure if I was burnt out on them, or just wanted to focus more on cash games. I’ve recently jumped back into the 3 ring circus and have played some large multi-table tournaments (MTTs) along with some singe table tournaments (STTs).

I would say that the STT is my bread and butter game. Over my last 800 games, my return on investment (ROI) is about 25%. However, in 2009 my MTT ROI is worse than negative 40% over just about 100 tournaments, however I’ve been in the money in 21% of those tournaments. I use a sound strategy in both types of games, but it has clearly been less profitable for me to play the larger tournaments, however the payoffs can be great if you make it deep in those. If you win a STT you’re net winnings will be about 4 times your buy-in.

My strategy in a STT is this. Don’t get crazy. Let the play come to me, and realize that there are many players who will over play their hands. Blind levels are 6 minutes, so in the first few levels, I play somewhat conservative although I’ll typically call a 3X raise out of position with AQ offsuit. I’ll raise in late position with A9 suited and see what the flop is. If I lose a chunk of my stack early, then I have to be more willing to commit all of my chips on upcoming hands with weaker pairs or draws. 

Once a couple players drop out and the blinds increase, your starting hand requirements loosen up a bit, but it’s still important to not get too frisky. At this point your goal is to cash which means finishing in the top 3. There is a bigger jump in the payouts from 4th to 3rd place than there is from 3rd to 2nd place. For example, on Full Tilt if you are playing a $20 + $2 tournament, 3rd pays $36, 2nd pays $54 and first pays $90. Getting reckless with only 4 or 5 players left is a bad idea.

I’m perfectly happy being patient in this spot, waiting for other crazies at the table to beat up on each other. Let them take each other out. As long as I’m not losing chips, or getting short stacked, I’m happy. Sometimes you’ll have a tough decision though. Say you have AK and you raise it up 3.5X and get 2 callers. The flop comes Kd8s9s and one of the two players pushes all in. Is top pair top kicker enough? Someone could have easily called with 10J suited, or even 88 or 99. Your relative chip stack to the all in bettor and the rest of the players makes a difference here.

If there are 5 players left, and 2 are really short stacked, and you’re facing this situation against one of the other big stacks, you should almost definitely fold. However if you were facing a short stack, it would be difficult to fold. Once you get to the final 3 players, you’ll have to be more aggressive and be willing to make some semi-bluffs.

The large MTTs that have several hundred, or even 1,000-2,000 players, require a much different strategy. I haven’t made a lot of final tables in these, but I do know what it takes to get in position to make a deep run. 

There will be MANY players who will come out with guns-a-blazing. Someone at my table last night raised 3X on about 80% of the hands. Then I’d say 90% of the time he bet the pot on the flop. This can work for a while, but all I had to do was just wait to catch any hand to beat him. There is just no way he could actually be hitting that many hands. Sure enough, I raise with AK, he calls along with 2 others. I check a king high flop and check, knowing that he’ll bet the pot, which was 1,200. He did, the other 2 players folded and I pushed all in. He instantly folded. I actually thought he’d call since I only had about 2,000 left and he had made some horrible calls previously. 

What a lot of people don’t understand is that doubling or tripling up early actually does very little for you. Yes, I’d certainly rather have a larger stack than a smaller one, that’s for sure. But what can happen is that you start playing a little more aggressive, or limp fold more and start bleeding chips. I tripled up in the first level in one of these large tournaments recently and then was dealt pocket 10s. I made a standard open raise of 3X and the button raises me another 5X. He had about 3K in chips to my 10K. I thought he was on just 2 overs and thought that if I shove that he’ll either fold or I would have a good chance to get to 13K in chips and increase my lead. Well, he did have 2 over cards…aces. Boom, I’m back down to 7K.

The blinds in the early levels just aren’t high enough to be risking a significant amount of chips. If you change your game at all with a big stack, you’re better off picking your spots. Maybe try putting in a big reraise in a 3 handed pot when they have checked to you on the flop and then one of them bets the turn. In my example above, I really didn’t have any evidence he was weak, so risking 3K was not smart.

Once antes are involved, there is more incentive to steal the pot. Everyone’s starting hand requirements is notched down some. This may be a better spot to push harder with your pocket 10s than in the 2nd level. One move that you’ll see a lot in the mid to later stages is someone shoving pre-flop with AK. Depending on your stack compared to the average stack, the blind levels and your opponents, it’s not necessarily a bad move. If you’re short stacked, shoving is your only move. 

What makes this move good is that there are very few hands that have you dominated. AA clearly has you dominated, but even if someone has KK which is unlikely, you’re probably only a 30/70 underdog. And if someone has a weaker ace then you’re in a dominating position. I don’t like to try this too often though, as you will start to look suspicious and you’re still an underdog to a pair.

A key statistic that I think is important to pay attention to is M, as referenced in the Harrington on Hold’Em books. M is basically the number of orbits you can survive if you folded every hand. You take your chip stack and divide by the sum of the current blinds and antes. However, don’t forget that once the blinds and antes change, it will affect your M. The lower your M (under 5), the more likely it is you should play AK and your pocket pairs aggressively, probably with an all in bet. 

Winning pots in early stages by and large just slowly increments your stack. Winning them in the mid to late stages usually increases your stack substantially. That is the portion of the tournament where you should be playing aggressively if any. Stealing the blinds and antes here can win you up to about 20% of an average stack.