THE MTT JUNGLE
John Huckle
It’s truly a jungle out there in the online poker land, wading through the many many online sites to find and master online multi table tournaments is a daunting prospect.
An MTT is the Holy Grail for any poker player, there’s no feeling like getting to the finish line especially when being railed by your mates, but how to get there?
Most players have a favorite site, usually the first one they ever played, it’s like home and no matter how long you have played for it’s where you most likely made most of your online pals and are comfortable with the software, so will play there until you die.
The problem with playing one site, particularly for MTTs is that there is rarely more than one MTT starting at your level of buy in at any one time, as each site has to cater for all players at all
levels. The only solution is to go hunting, so where to go and what to look for?
Every site has MTTs ranging from $1 buy-in upwards but when looking to play you have to consider a few points.
Are you looking to win large amounts from a small investment? If this is the case then search out tournaments that have good guarantees and are likely to have a large field.
These will undoubtedly have the most potential for your investment, but their down side is there are a lot of players you have to wade through so you may end up playing for 5 or 6 hours and not
showing much profit. A lot of the time these tourneys end up as all-in muff fests as the bad players watch top spot and think they need to constantly gamble to stay in contention, more luck than
skill required here. Sites such as Pokerstars and Fulltilt have such large field MTTs, so if you want to chase the huge prize - fill your boots.
In reality very good MTT players would struggle to consistently win tourneys with 1000+ runners and if you are fairly new to the tourney scene then avoid these, you will undoubtedly lose patience and end up playing donkey fest poker. I would aim for the 150-500 player range these still offer a very nice profit for getting to the final table and a much better chance of that all important win. Also look out for value in tourneys where the number of players doesn’t meet the guarantee.
Most of the European based sites have a good range of these with lots of guaranteed prize pools with lower buy-ins. TGFpoker.com (Boss media), LadbrokesPoker.com, GrandslamPoker.com (iPoker)
MansionPoker.com (Ongame) and these sites also offer huge prize pool MTTs with very low buy in satellites.
So now you’ve done your homework and found some sites and MTTs you want to play what next?
How much can you afford to lose comfortably? No one should buy-in for more than they can afford to lose, as often players are too scared to play well in such situations, they just whimper out when they are so short they have no choice but to push. As a rule of thumb try not to buy in to any MTT for more than 15% of your daily bankroll if you want to play the bigger buy-in events look for MTTs that have satellites into them and try and qualify. Try to avoid turbo blinds as they always lead to shove and hope tactics which remove the skill element from the game. If you want to gamble go to the local brothel and ask for some condom free fun. Also once you’ve bought in and the tourney has started your money is gone, now you are trying to win, not avoiding losing your buy in, always play to win.
Before sitting down to play you need to make sure you can play it to a finish and have no pressures of rushing off anywhere or getting grief for being up late. Preferably you should be able to play without distraction, as one mistake is all it takes for you to be heading off to the rails. Watching TV, chatting on MSN, rowing with the missus, surfing porn or just playing too many tables can all be causes of unnecessary exits, so avoid distractions if you are serious about winning and not just taking part.
There a few things to remember when you 1st sit down at lower buy-in MTTs, half the players you are playing against have little or no knowledge of how to play the game, but think they do. Anyone with a lot of luck can blind squirrel an MTT but to win consistently you need to follow certain rules. If someone plays like a total donkey, (and they will) try to keep calm and most importantly don’t try and tell them what they did wrong. Most won’t care what you say because they think they are right, and the rest you want to keep in the dark so they play bad forever.
Be patient and don’t watch the leader board, it doesn’t matter how many chips you have half way through an MTT just that you have them all at the end. As long as you have enough chips to make the big blind fold to your all-in you don’t need to gamble, way too many players throw away their stack because they are far behind the leaders. I have seen many players win MTTs from last place because they waited to get their chips in at the right time with good cards.
Remember position and starting hands, the further from the button you are the weaker your hands is, and for the bingo players having a pair in your hand doesn’t mean the other player must have AK so be prepared to pass small pairs.
I would strongly recommend reading Harrington on holdem volumes 1, 2 and 3 these have crucial information on all aspects of tourney play they start at the very basics but lead into in-depth analysis. He especially looks at starting hand and what to do and what position to play them from.
Just remember all players make mistakes as part of the learning process and long as you don’t make the same mistake twice you will get better and better, make notes of any key hands and discuss them with fellow players (good players preferably) and see if they would have played them differently.
Lastly poker is a game of skill not luck, the more you put yourself in race situations the more likely you are to exit the tourney, so don’t play bingo try and build a stack as MTTs are a marathon not a sprint.
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