How you play MTT's – Multi table poker tournaments

If you have any aspirations as a poker player to win a World Series of Poker bracelet, or shoot for that elusive big score and take down a large amount of money in one go then learning how to effectively play multi table tournaments is a must for you. People may well comment that winning a poker tournament is mostly luck, but without correct tournament strategy you will be unable to win, and that big score will remain a dream. This article is a basic starting point to learning how to play poker with the correct style in these tournaments.

Multi table poker tournaments are profitable to play because everyone thinks that they have a chance when few do. Many times a lot of the field are dead money because they do not study the game, they overplay their hands and are simply weak players. You will notice the same names on the final table list repeatedly; this could be you with some practise and study.

Quite often there are many tournament players who simply do not fold. Even if you show strength, you will be called with sometimes surprisingly weak hands. You should play tight in the early levels, but you will notice sometimes even within the first 10 hands, some players have trebled their starting stack. These hyper aggressive players would normally have busted out early in most tournaments, but luck is on their side this time. These are not players to fear, if you hit your hand and commit your chips, they will pay you off. These players can appear keen to give back chips they acquired early on, often appearing kamikaze in style.

In the early levels you should take advantage of the fact that blinds are low relative to your stack size and you can afford to wait for the premium hands. You will need the hand strength when facing off against the maniac player’s common in the early stages of most tournaments, particular the lower buy-ins. If you are strong at post flop play and understand flop textures and can fold a marginal hand, you can limp in when in good position and perhaps hit a monster. In MTT’s you should generally bet when you make your hand as you will be paid off more often than not.

As the blinds increase the skill part of the tournament arrives. Your decision on whether to try and steal the blinds and antes in position should be made from what you have observed earlier in the quieter part of the tournament. Whether a player may fold a hand becomes critical on whether you push with your marginal raising hands. Any information you can use to help you is important. You should target the mid sized stacks as they are the ones who may be waiting for better hands before committing their chips. You must be prepared to make folds if you are re-raised pre-flop, not every steal attempt works unfortunately. If you get a hand like Ace Jack, down to Ace eight, or a mid range pocket pair, you should consider whether you would call an all-in re-raise if you are pushed upon. Considering this scenario will help you work out your opponents likeliness to play back at you, and may change your decision on whether this is the right time to steal.

An effective method I use at the beginning of the tournament is to do a quick calculation on stacks for the final table. I multiply the amount of runners by the starting stack, giving me the total amount of all the chips in play. Then I divide by 9 and that gives me a rough idea on the average for the final table. This should not be used as a strict target, but as a small reminder that you will need to gain chips to win, so limping with suited connectors and gambling to acquire a stack is part of the game. In order to win that big score you will need to survive all-in coin flips, as well as chip up in the middle of the tournaments. Sometimes everything you try will be re-raised and things just will not work out. This is known as variance and MTT’s are particularly volatile.

You should read the various texts available by professional players about how to play these multi-table tournaments. Knowing that you are doing the right things will reassure you when you push and are called by a draw that hits. That is poker. Just keep doing the right things; the brilliant thing about tournaments is the next one just might be the one that gets you that big win we all hope for.

By Malcolm Clarke