Becoming A Winning (MTT) Multi Table Tournament Player.
Hi I'm new to this forum but I had written this blog on another poker forum a while back and I thought I may be able to share it here. It's how to become a winning player in multi table NL Hold'em tournaments. I will discuss the following key components: The VALUE BET, VALUE SHOVE, THE SQUEEZE PLAY & the STOP AND GO, and how they effect your game. I will also describe in what stage of tournaments these actions are used and why they are effective.These are just a few of many elements to a successful MTT. There are too many to get into and I would be writing a novel here if I were to cover all the areas.
When you're in the early stages of a Multi Table Tournament (MTT), play top hands only AK, AQ, High Suited Connectors, Pocket Pairs. You'll see a lot of basic ABC poker playing here . You can use this stage to take notes of the other players. You don'treally have to worry about stealing blinds at this stage it isn't worth it. There isn't enough value yet at this stage.
Middle stage MTT's is whereit's at. This is where all the action happens. This is where you need to focus on building your stack. Be aggressive here. Steal the antes/blinds and as many pots as possible. C-bet often. Value shove: A Value Shove is when you overbet the pot for value it tends to involve a committment of shoving your stack all-in. Value shoving is used because of the value that is created from players calling you. Value shoving can be profitable when you're drawing for a flush/straight or when you hold the best hand and want to make it look like a bluff to get called. Squeeze play: A bluff reraise in no limit hold'em with marginal or poor cards, after another player or players have already called the original raise. The goal is to bluff everyone out of the hand and steal the bets. Assuming a standard raise of 3-4 big blinds, a Squeeze bet is about 20 big blinds.When a player raises, a second calls and a third re-raises to squeeze the others out of the pot. Pressure is placed on the original raiser, because he either has to call or raise with 2 players left to act. If she folds, the second player either has to call or (what I like to do here)- re-raise against the third player who showed a lot of strength. Avoid trapping yourself. A check on the river is always a safe play if you are last to act.
The aggressive action and squeeze plays from the middle stages are reduced by the later stages of a poker tournament. Play the bubble. Here you will be seeing a lot of Stop & Go's: The stop and go play is where you have a hand that you intend on moving all-in with. However, you call an opponent's bet before the flop instead of pushing, with the intention of pushing all-in on the flop instead. A large number of small and mid-stack players will be trying to make the money. Take advantage of these players by raising them allin when they're on the blinds. They'll tend to only call with premium hands, which make them easy targets.
There's limited post-flop action at the final table. Most the action occurs preflop. Chances are you'll be shorthand. So play and raise preflop with a much higher range of hand range including suited connectors, and wired suited connectors like 9-J, 8-10 and suited aces like A-3, A-7 etc.
Squeeze playing, value betting/shoving, Stop & Go's are ideal tools toutilizein becoming a better, more profitable multi table tournament player in the long run. I hope you find this post useful. Good luck both on & off those felts.
