There are several reasons why it is correct to play tight early in a tournament.

1- There are no antes.

2- Players tend to have similar stacks to your own

3- Stealing the blinds is worth very little.

4- The pay structure does not reward you for accumulating a big stack early.

5- You usually have very little information about the players around you.

“There ain’t no nation like a donation,” comes from one of my students. Sometimes, you don’t have to really try to get chips; your opponents are all too eager to give them to you. My student always referred to these situations as donations, and there is nothing better than having someone give you a lot of chips by making a completely unnecessary bluff. Early in a tournament my focus is on putting yourself in situations where you are able to get donations without giving them. The easiest way to avoid giving donations is to play very tight, particularly in early position. We made five points about why tight is right; let’s expand on each reason a bit.

1- Antes are the fruit of life in a poker tournament. Most of the edges that we exploit comes directly, or more frequently indirectly from antes. If you are loose early in a tournament then you are far more likely to find yourself out of the tournament before the easy money even begins. You may very well be able to accumulate a large stack, but you are paying more than is necessary to do so. The one exception to this is in a tournament with a re-buy format.

2- At the beginning of a tournament everyone has the same stack. In later articles we will look at spots where an opponent on your right has a lot of chips, this may lead to enough of an incentive to make a marginal gamble correct. Being to the left of one of the largest stack on the table while having the second largest stack is an extremely good situation to be in. I will discuss why, and how to exploit this situation in later articles. Even in a situation where early in a tournament you find yourself to the left of a massive stack, usually it is still right to wait for the antes to begin gambling. You may very well be moved to another table before you have the chance to abuse your position on the big stack. Even if the break order of the tables shows you that you will be at this table for a long period, then you know that you will also be there long enough to have the potential to receive a donation instead of gambling to get to this optimal situation.

3- Stealing the blinds is worth very little. If at the current blind level you can afford 50 rounds of blinds, then stealing the blinds will only increase your stack by 2%. If the average player has a stack around this size, then you gain very little by involving yourself. This is true until you can afford only about 10 rounds of blinds at the current blind level. Since falling below this threshold is an uncommon part of the tournament, we will go into more detail about it later.

4- In addition to the lack of ability to abuse many of the strategical uses for gambling to get chips, there is a simple mathematical reason to avoid gambling early. This mathematical reason will frequently be less substantial than the strategical advantages that arise later in the tournament. Getting all the chips can only win you first prize; not all of the money in the prize pool! As an example, lets say on the first hand, everyone else on the table agrees to go all-in without looking at their cards. Do you agree to this even gamble? No, because accumulating a 10x average stack won’t even guarantee you making the money. You will be 10x as likely to win the tournament if you win the gamble, but first prize is usually 30% or less of the prize-pool.

5- The early stages of a tournament are basically your free study session. You can observe the players around you, look for mistakes they are making, and figure out ways to outplay them. It is important to know how the other players are likely to act in a situation before you get into that situation with them. The more the other players get involved with each other, the more information you have about them without giving any information away about yourself. We are not going to suggest playing tight for the whole tournament, so those that notice your very tight play may draw incorrect conclusions about you later in the event.

Questions you should be asking yourself are:

What kinds of hands players are raising?

What positions are the players are raising from?

How frequently does a player limp into a pot?

How much is a player betting when they hit?

Is a player capable of making a bluff raise?

Does a player respect position?

If a player talks about the play, is there any reasonable conclusions you draw from their talk?

What kinds of hands will a player call a raise before the flop with?

What kinds of hands will a player call a bet after the flop with?

Is a player capable of floating? [there will be more discussion on floating later].

Does a player notice how the other players are playing, or are they just playing their cards?

Try and focus on the players directly to your right and left, then further and further away in each direction. Since you (and most of your opponents) will be tighter in earlier positions, the closer a player is sitting to you, the more likely you are to be involved with them.

You want to combine these questions together the best you can. For instance, it is extremely important to notice the combination of position and the kinds of hands a player is likely to raise.

It is very important to notice what positions a player limps into a pot.

It is very important to notice if a player notices how other players are playing in combination with their bluffing tendencies.

A great example of a well combined set of questions would be:

What kinds of hands, or situations is a player likely to make a bluff raise, and who are they likely to make it against?

By incorporating tight play early in your tournament game, you enable yourself the ability to ask questions, make assessments, and get a precise feel for the players and play of your table; something that will give you an edge early on in your tournament career.

The question now becomes: How do their limps affect your decision to fold/call/raise?

First, big unsuited cards lose value with more opponents. A hand like AK has significantly more value as a heads-up type of hand than a multi-way, which forces us to make a larger than average raise. (Allowing the blinds in cheap would make a pot very difficult to play without a raise for the same reasons it is correct to raise a hand like AK when first in the pot). Weaker aces like ATo, or AJo become folding hands. Your hand is a little too weak to be committing an appropriate raise, even in position, and a flat call will leave you in the dark where you are at after the flop when you flop top pair. ATs or AJs, however, gain value because of the possibility of flopping a flush draw in position (or a flush draw with top pair or a gut shot as well). The price you get to flop these draws becomes so great with all the limpers that simply folding would be a mistake. Even more marginal suited hands like 68s or A5s gain substantial value for a call as well; just don’t get confused about the strength of your hand when you flop just a pair.

Small pocket pairs (22-77) gain value for limping when other players have limped in front of you. When you flop a set (odds of flopping a set: 7.5-1.) you have a monster hand, and will often get a good price to draw even if you run your set into a flopped straight or flush. The price you get by the end of the hand (implied odds) will average FAR greater than 7.5-1 when you flop a set in a multi-way-pot.

Medium pocket pairs (88-TT) can be simply downgraded to small pocket pairs when there are multiple limpers in front of you. If you don’t flop a set, don’t bet. It keeps you out of trouble with hands that, early in your tournament career, are incredibly marginal. While playing these hands more aggressively can net you moderately sized pots more frequently, they also are notorious for causing players to bust out of tournaments early when they run into higher pocker pairs or lower sets. Proceed with caution if you choose to play these more aggressively.

Large pocket pairs (JJ-AA) want to punish the limpers with a raise. It is imperative that you don’t see a 4+ way flop with these hands. With JJ-KK if an over card flops in a 4+ way pot you can just concede your hand as beat, but even if you do flop an over-pair, the amount of players will make it very difficult for you to accurately evaluate your hand. The following example should help:

You limp or raise less than suggested and you see a 6 way flop with Ac Ah. The flop is 6d 8d 9h. What’s your play? If you bet and get raised, what do you do? It will be very difficult to evaluate what players have hands that beat you, and what players have cards are just drawing to beat you. The biggest mistake you can make with a big pair is losing a big pot by paying off a now better hand. The second biggest mistake is folding a winner after investing a lot of chips. Both of these scenarios occur the most often when you don’t properly protect your hand before the flop. You don’t want to over-bet your best hands and get no action, however, so I suggest making similar raises with hands such as AKo, to keep your opponents on their toes.

Armed with these standards, you should be able to stay out of danger. But, when you think people have started to figure out how you play, you can try some creative plays. It would be reasonable to make the same raise with a medium pair if you believe you are likely to get the pot heads up. If it doesn’t work and you get multiple calls, you can still flop a set, but heads up, you can very frequently continuation bet and take the pot. This is a dangerous, but profitable play, so use it sparingly and selectively.