What's your strategy in the early stages of a No Limit Hold'em multi-table tournament?

Question

What do you find the best strategy in No Limit Hold'em during the early levels of a multi-table tournament: ultra aggressive, conservative, somewhere in between? What percentage of hands do you usually play in this early stage?

Answer 1

you adapt, but basically Tight- aggressive, you don't want to jeopardize your tournament life when blinds are low, many players still in the game....etc. Tournaments are all about survival. Early stage play tight ( premium hand) and be aggressive when you have the best of it. When you hold AQ,AK, QQ, KQ...etc, bet around 3/4 times the big blind to narrow your opponents, don't give free cards. If you built a tight image early on tournaments, you will be able to steal a few blinds in middle stage.

Take care

Answer 2

Personally, in multi-table tourneys, I play super tight for the first couple of levels, and only play super-premium hands (I've mucked J-J preflop whenunder the gun early in a tourney). Doyle says that if you can increase your stack by about 20% the first 2 levels, you're doing okay.

If it's a turbo tourney (blinds go up every 10 minutes or so), you can still play tight at first, but you'll need to loosen up quickly.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

Yah...I'll play very tight-aggressive.

Play top 5 hands aggressively....try to sneak into pots with small/mid pairs and suited connectors....suited gappers also, if I'm feeling tricky.

Answer 4

I tend to be conservative, wait for the show-offs to screw themselves first. I play maybe 10% of my hands

Answer 5

you basically try not to get yourself in a a hole, you play the big hands but you definitely dont go crazy.

percentage can really flucuate just depending on what kind of cards you're getting