Balance Grasshopper.The concept of balance is as old as time, but let’s take a look at how this concept can help you master the multi-table tournament (MTT) and how we can take advantage of our opponents' inexperience at different stages of a tournament by becoming a more balanced and well rounded poker player. In this article I hope to present some ideas about how to do that and offer my opinion on why it's important. I would also like to mention that this article, as with all of my articles, is just a representation of my opinions and observations. My goal is to encourage you to consider my ideas, not to have you blindly take them as truth. I am hoping to inspire you to think of poker, and my thoughts on the subject at hand, in a broader and more philosophical way. Even if you happen to disagree with me I hope the discussion itself will inspire deeper thinking and possibly some new ideas, while helping to further your game.
Let’s start with a variation of the Law of Diminishing Returns and look at how it relates to poker. The law says that by repeating an action you receive less and less benefit with each occurrence until you receive almost nothing at all. In poker terms, let’s say that you play in the same game over and over again, the first time you play in this game it would stand to reason that you are increasing your skill by quite a large amount by gaining that new experience. However, if you were to play millions of online poker hands, your skill level would likely increase much less from hands 900,000 to 1,000,000 than it from hands 1 to 100,000. Eventually you see almost no increase in skill at all -- and this is the point of zero returns. So how do we improve our skills more quickly or after we have reached the dreaded point of minimal returns?
If we break down the different stages of an MTT we can find games that will benefit our play in each of the stages by helping to improve specific skills. So let’s identify some of the situations you will face and figure out which of the games or variations would give us a similar feel so we can work on some of those skills outside of the MTT format.
In the first stage, the blinds are often not significant and stacks are deep by comparison. It is important to avoid losing EV in key pots. This stage will see a lot of post-flop play and in order to be successful and build your stack, you will need to be able to read betting patterns, players, and board textures. Omaha cash games help increase these skills as it emphasizes post-flop play and requires you to become adept at reading the board.
The first major change in play begins when the antes start. This stage will see play gradually beginning to shift from post-flop to pre-flop play. The introduction of the antes and the ever increasing blinds make each pot that much more enticing. In this stage, pre-flop hand selection, position, and aggression are important. Any of the non-turbo MTT Sit and Gos will offer you plenty of practice, but I prefer the 18-45 man SNGs.
Next, let’s talk about play during the bubble effect. This stage includes players who are folding to cash and those who are seeking to take advantage of that. It is also characterized by a wider array of stack sizes and how those affect your play is very important. This is where you will most often begin to find yourself in a hairy predicament that we know as "push/fold" poker. While we never want to play push/fold poker, the dirty little secret is that sometimes we have to. It is for that reason that I also suggest playing the Turbo Sit and Go's. I prefer the MTT Turbo Sit and Gos because they will very quickly put you into a push/fold situation and even the biggest of them takes no more than a little over an hour to play.
The last area I want to discuss is the final two or three tables. Our objective now is to get from here to taking down this tournament. Well between you and the top spot you're going to see a couple of different situations, you’re going to see a wide mix of stack sizes, and short-handed tables. One of the biggest opportunities here is the move to short-handed play. Depending on the structure of the tournament you could find most of your opponents with a comfortable stack, but since this is not likely, my first recommendation here is to play the turbo 6-max SNGs. Because of the short blind levels and number of players, I think this will help you begin to re-assess your ranges and style to more adequately compete in the new table structure. You will be faced with this when there are 14 or fewer players left -- and again with 6-7 players left. Being comfortable here can make you a lot of money.
The next suggestion I believe is the most profitable one in this entire article, because so few people are truly comfortable when faced with a heads-up battle. I suggest spending some time playing heads-up Sit and Gos. Why should we limit our heads-up experience to such a rare occasion as making an MTT final table when there is so much money on the line? You can’t truly replicate being heads-up in an MTT but you can make yourself a better heads up player by working on that aspect of your game and becoming more comfortable with the style of play. Wouldn't you gladly spend some time playing heads-up Sit and Gos if it gives you a reasonable shot at finishing first more often than second? I would.
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