Early live tournament strategy

[tight4better]

To all the min-raisers out there, in a live tournament at around what levels do we start min-raising as opposed to 2.5x for example?

I guess it depends on the buy-in and standard of field too I guess so apologies if my question seems rather vague.

[cambridgealex]

500/1k cos its the first level its easier to minraise than do anything else

[paulhouk03]

3x preflop until people have around 20 bb  then I start to min raise

Generally play very snug then loose when people tighten up far too much.

General strat for me but that's for regular casino type tourneys.

[sm00035]

Sm's post was really nice but in the buy ins I play 50-500 there's so much value in just waiting for the hand and just get the easy double with the set etc. Maybe in the higher buyin's the ballistic 4bet strategy is good but I've just spent a weekend in Blackpool with every guy under 30 telling me its softer that the hot 2.20 lol. Shame to bust comps like that with any slightly high variance line really.

100%. I assumed Pads was talking about EPT's etc. Imo in the £500-£1ks just see a lot of cheap flops where possible and make sure you are value betting properly. I learnt the hard way it's a lot easier to just value bet top/second pair against the majority of the field who are going to want visual confirmation that you have made a pair every time as apposed to taking every little spot you think is available

[jgcblack]

level 1,

ep opens, mp calls, we're otb whats very worst hand we want to see a flop with?

 

[Young_gun]

Surely everything depends on your table draw, if everyone else is being nitty then up the aggro and try to play lots of pots. If you have good/aggro players then just try to use position, if everyone is being station then can either play v tight or call behind with suited connectors and once you hit hard or get a nice draw go mad 

[Ant040689]

I am definitely one for playing as many hands as I can early doors, to get a feel for the table and to see how resistant they are to open raises and bets on all streets on different types of textured boards. You can learn so much about everyone at the table by dabbling relatively risk free in the early stages and you can also give yourself a sort of untrue wild image by opening quite wide early on, getting tight in the later levels but they still have their pre-conceived ideas about you.

I think if we are so deep early on we should be playing quite wide as there is a lot of info we can pick up on people for hardly any effect at all to our stack. Obviously I am not going to be playing wild post flop and relatively abc here, but I would be looking to get to the flop as much as possible.

[pleno1]

Can't we just let them battle and find out the info anyway?

[cambridgealex]

level 1,

ep opens, mp calls, we're otb whats very worst hand we want to see a flop with?

 

This is a poor holding imo

[Ant040689]

we can yes, Pleno, I just think it is more fun to do it my way.