Basic strategy for Texas Hold\'em multi-table-tournaments (MTT)
Introduction
Multi-table-tournaments (MTTs), tournaments with a minimum of 20 players at two tables, strongly differ in two manners from all the other alternatives of Texas Hold\'em.
Firstly, the amount of money which you can win in proportion to your bet/commitment is enormous. Especially at MTTs in which more than hundred or sometimes even more than a thousand players participate it is possible to make a huge sum from a relatively small amount. a fantastic example is the tale of Chris Moneymaker (his real name). With $40 he bought himself into two satellite tournaments, won a ticket to the head tournament of the WSOP 2003 (world championship poker) and eventually won the first price of $2.500.000. He is a professional poker player ever since. Who doesn't want that? This possibility is probably the reason for the large popularity of MTTs nowadays.
The other difference of MTTs compared to any other form of poker is that the chance of actually winning something is way smaller regardless of how well you play. The reason for this is that luck becomes a much more influential factor when participating at tournaments of this scope. For example, at the end of the tournament all chips will be thrown in the pot before the flop which results in a sort of head-or-coin game. Furthermore, you'll need a large bankroll in case you only want to play MTT's (minimum hundred times the buy-in). Statistically it must be possible to end up in the prices once in every fifty times you participate in a MTT This however can still be profitable. Still, in general your hourly return will be lower compared to playing other variances of poker. Keep in mind that MTT's always last terribly long. You can easily play many hours and end up falling outside the prices. On the other hand, when you are lucky and for example you've won a pretty large MTT with a buy-in of $100, you've ended up earning an annual salary in a day!!!
Strategy
For a good strategy for an MTT you should distinguish three phases in the tournament:
1. The beginning of the tournament
For MTTs you should use a totally different strategy compared to playing at ordinary tables. In MTTs bluffing is way less effective. This is because in general the quantity of chips of the players in proportion to the pot is way lower. Besides that, and this is very important to realize, in general the positive value of an increase of your number of chips is lower than the negative value of a fall of your number of chips with the same quantity. Or in other words: an increase of 2000 to 3000 chips has a less positive impact on your winning chances than a decrease to 1000 has on your chances to lose. It is therefore wise to avoid gambling as much as possible. Also trying to draw for a large part of your stack (number of chips owned) with marginal odds is not recommended. In a tournament with many participants it is often more a question of surviving (as long as possible until you fall into the prices) then of winning.
In the beginning phase of MTT you must only try to win large pots with only good hands against bad players. This is usually no problem, given that there are always a lot of very aggressive, reckless players participating in MTTs. You can roughly play the same hands as we have discussed in the basic strategy for basic Texas Hold\'em. Once again we strongly discourage bluffing!
2. Halfway the tournament
During the tournament the blinds become increasingly higher and therefore it becomes more and more significant to win them. You should apply the principle that it is much easier to raise with a weak hand then it is to call with a strong hand. Use this as a strategy! However do pay attention to players with very large stacks. Those players sometimes have the strategy to call as many hands possible to eliminate opponents from the tournament. In this phase of the tournament it is more then ever a question of surviving. You have to steal blinds, otherwise the blinds will put an early end to your tournament. Try to avoid confrontations unless you're very sure about your hand. Take into account that at this stage loosing once can be enough to cause elimination from the tournament.
If you have a large stack things are different. In that case it could be a good idea to abuse the surviving techniques of the other players. Put your opponents under pressure by raising a lot and by making them choose between folding or all-in They risk elimination of the tournament whereas you only risk one part of your stack However, do not raise everything because you will then be too predictable. Also be very aware of bad players who will call anything.
3. The end of the tournament
At the end of the tournament all decisions are taken before the flop It will be a matter of going all-in or fold The heads or tails game has begun. For players with a low stack it can now be sensible to go all-in with reasonable or even bad hands. If you fold you might lose too much anyway and if you go all-in you have two winning opportunities: you win because everyone else folds, or you win because eventually you turn out to have the best hand. At this stage you can expect very strange situations to appear (e.g.: people who go all-in with AA are called by J2 and lose from the J2). In case you have a reasonable or large stack it is therefore best to make use of the situation. If you have an a, you have an advantage against all players with two different cards without an a. If you have a pocket pair you have a small advantage against all players without a pocket pair and you have an enormous advantage or disadvantage against all players who also have a pocket pair (when two pocket pairs go all-in against each other, the highest pocket pair has a chance of winning 4 to 1!!). Therefore, if you have an a or a pocket pair at this stage you should go all-in especially when you have a small stack You can then no longer afford to have your blinds stolen anyway. The chance is absolutely there that you will lose, however you will then in any case also have the chance to win the blinds.
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