Tortiose or the Hare?

Multi-Table Tournament Strategy

Tortiose or the Hare?

atlantisdan 10-19-2005, 4:02 AM
How do you come out of the gate? Slow and methodical and allow the looser players to bust out in an attempt to survive the early carnage? Or are you more the Guns ablazin type that likes to amass chips early for the long haul yet to come? There are merits to both styles just explain how they work for you.

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

beatdahouse1 12-09-2005, 8:51 AM
i play a little in the middle i dont try to take everyone out early but i do want my share of the fish money thats going aroundif i have an avg stack by the first break i uasually do weel but if short stacked forced to take more risks

you may be right.... i may be crazy

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

robindeem 03-04-2006, 7:22 PM
I like to sit back and evaluate the table first. I try and do the opposite of what my opponents are doing. If I am at a tight table....I will become more loose and play more hands. If I am at a loose table where they are calling everything....I sit back and play extremely tight. This strategy works for me 80% of the time on sit n go tournys $10 and under. If I am playing a tourny $20 or over I play tight aggressive no matter what my table is doing.

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

KeithF 03-04-2006, 8:18 PM
"I try and do the opposite of what my opponents are doing."

That'll work :)

It's easier said than done though, for sure. I'm conservative by nature, so even when I see situations where loosening up would be the correct strategy, I find it hard to do it in the early stages of a tourney.

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

achipnachair 03-05-2006, 11:39 AM
It can be hard for a tight player to play lose. Putting your chips in the pot with basically a junk hand just hoping to hit something, is though to do.If im in a freeroll i do play more lose then in a money game thats for sure

Poker is not a card game played with people. Poker is a people game played with cards.

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

Ole_is_Alice 03-09-2006, 7:07 PM
That is a very interesting topic. Are you trying to get me to share my winning ways? Lol. I am so unpredictable that even I don't know what I will do first and then last. It more or less depends on my mood and then of course ultimately on my cards. I am not a very big initial better and if I have a decent hand I can be a "call" hound and really frustrate the people who are betting big when I take their money. For the most part I am a fairly tight player but when I am tired, you will know it because I go "all in" a lot.

You should see my other half

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

revriver 03-14-2006, 1:39 AM
Depends on my mood, that and
early game - hare
late game - tortise

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

kanocker32 03-26-2006, 4:21 PM
It usually depends on the types of hands that I am getting. I've had times where I played really fast paced and got my chips up high, but then lost them all in one or two hands. Other times I have been down to low stack and I slowly worked my way up to the top and ended up winning. Interesting topic, many different players opinions :-)

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

Rarline 05-31-2006, 1:23 AM
I like to wait for the hands. I find it hard to throw tonnes of chips into a pot hoping to catch something or hoping my opponnent has less than I do. I learned that the hard way because when I started playing poker I was a really really loose player =p

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

dovla1982 08-14-2006, 8:47 PM
it depends of tourney..

if it is turbo tourney with 1000 starting chips, you must try to build a stack at early stage...
in normal tourneys with slow blind raising you don't need to rush - i see many peoples watching the info and after 30 minutes of play in which they didn't take any big pot they're starting to get loose and call marginal hands.. sometimes you won't get hands, or you'll get out with best hand in pot.. but it happens only sometimes..

first examine the table.. see who is "tight" and who is "loose" and who don't know what he is doing.. if you find an idiot raising every hand with nothing and getting lucky, i will call big raises with non-premium hands..
patience is the most important thing in poker..

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

hobonico 08-25-2006, 11:16 AM
I come out of every tourney playing so-so hands. I call with 7 6 and 5 4 and try and see a very cheap flop. the blinds are soo small in the beginning that even if someone raises after I call the blind...I can just fold cause it was a little chip out of my stack...as the blinds go up, my hand choice gets thinner until I pretty much only play pocket pairs or premium hands.

Re: Tortiose or the Hare?

MONEYMAN06 09-28-2006, 3:50 PM

robindeem wrote:
I like to sit back and evaluate the table first. I try and do the opposite of what my opponents are doing. If I am at a tight table....I will become more loose and play more hands. If I am at a loose table where they are calling everything....I sit back and play extremely tight. This strategy works for me 80% of the time on sit n go tournys $10 and under. If I am playing a tourny $20 or over I play tight aggressive no matter what my table is doing.

Very good way of putting it, thats exactly how I play. The thing is there is never a right or wrong way to play the opening stages of a tournament. I usually no before the tournament even starts sometimes whether my table will be loose or aggressive. For instance if I am playing a $1,000 AP Challenge at Absolute Poker, I realize that the table is usually going to be tight, people want to play it safe, so in that case I will get very aggressive until I see the table loosen up. I change gears from time to time, playing loose when neccessary and tight when neccesary.

I agree that this strategy will work well in sit n goes, in fact thats the way I would recommend everyone to play in sit n goes, playing the opposite will prove most beneficial in almost any type of game not just sit n goes.