Top 3 Preflop Adjustments For Success in MTTs

Top 3 Preflop Adjustments
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  • My Poker Coaching September 4, 2021
  • 4 Minutes Read

Multi-table tournaments are a very demanding format that takes a lot of skill and effort to master. As in all other formats, you need to balance your game from start to finish to give yourself the best winning chances from the first to the final table. Plus, since you’ll spend most of your MTT journey with a shallow stack, you can’t afford to make too many mistakes.

As a result, the first element of your MTT poker game you need to master is your preflop tactic. If you are in the last stage of an MTT, you can use the NASH chart to make your decisions, but if you get a rocky start preflop, you’ll always have bad ranges post-flop, and your success rate will suffer.

To help you improve and adapt your MTT game, we share the top three preflop adjustments you can make in MTTs.

 

1. Calling Raises to Trap Your Opponents

Preflop trapping can be a potent tool. That said, you shouldn’t resort to this tactic too often in early tournament stages, as it can quickly turn against you, but things change when you have a shorter stack.

Therefore, when you’re playing with fewer chips, it’s often best not to 3-bet your strongest hands, primarily when there are also short-stacked players behind you. This is because one of them might try to steal the pot by 3-bet shoving, and you will simply collect the money in the long run.

With all of this in mind, you can sometimes 3-bet your strong hand to discourage shoving attempts and mix it up with medium strength holdings and stealing attempts. By doing so, you’ll likely force the original raiser to fold his hand most of the time. But, of course, to make the best of this strategy, you need to be aware of your entire range to make sure you’re not putting yourself in a tough spot and 3-betting only fairly weak hands.

 

2. Master Open Shoving and 3-bet Shoving

Open shoving and 3-bet shoving are relatively common strategies that even reasonably inexperienced players can resort to. However, there’s a big difference between employing these tactics in your game and mastering them. Most often, only those who achieve the latter can look for long-term success in MTTs.

For instance, you can use a push fold chart to determine when you should be open-shoving, but the table won’t always help you. This is because the table you’re playing, and your opponents are two significant variables to account for in MTTs.

The situation isn’t any different when it comes to 3-bet shoving. You can’t make blanket decisions for all spots because your choices should be player-dependent. Again, investing time and effort to calculate your equity and understand your ranges may seem uninteresting but will make a huge difference in your game.

 

3. Adjust Your Ranges Based on Your Opponents

Lastly, let’s focus on an aspect that most players take for granted – adjusting your ranges. One of the most significant parts of poker is assessing your opponents to know what type of player you’re facing. This is crucial in every cash game but is especially important in multi-table tournaments.

You’re always making decisions based on your opponents’ actions, so you should know as much about other players as possible. Fortunately, when you’re playing online MTTs, you have various poker statistics available to you at the tip of your fingers. All you need to do is pay attention and learn to discern and use the data to help you win during the game.

For example, some MTT players will often 3-bet aggressively, while others will save this action only for top-quality hands. Thus, one type makes a prime target for 4-betting, while the other doesn’t.

In line with this, some poker players will often call preflop action, while others will again only follow through when they feel they’ve got a strong hand. Your overall MTT success will rely heavily on your ability to read through your opponents and change the gears when needed.

While this topic is too comprehensive to cover all of the possible outcomes and strategies in this general article, make sure to be aware of your opponent’s tendencies, and don’t be afraid to adjust your strategy based on your observations.

 

About the Author

Tadas Peckaitis is a professional poker player, author, and poker coach at mypokercoaching.com. He writes for a range of online publications and helps other poker players to excel. If you are looking to up your game or find interesting information about poker, you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Tadas Peckaitis
Tadas Peckaitis

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MyPokerCoaching

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