Tournament Poker: How Aggressive Should You Be?

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hung4260396

hung4260396

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In tournament poker, I think being too tight can be just as dangerous as being too aggressive. Early in the tournament, I’m usually more patient because there’s no need to risk everything with a marginal hand. But when the blinds get bigger and the stack gets shorter, I think you have to start taking more chances.

For me, the interesting part is knowing when to stop waiting and start putting pressure on other players. Sometimes you need to gamble a little to build a stack, but sometimes protecting your chips is more important.

The hard question is: When the tournament gets serious, should you focus more on surviving, or on building a big stack?
 
hung4260396 said:
In tournament poker, I think being too tight can be just as dangerous as being too aggressive.
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the way that you have worded this makes me think that you are making the far too common error of thinking that tight and aggressive are opposites. Loose or wide is the opposite of tight and pertains to ranges. Aggressive and passive are opposites and pertain to frequency of betting/raising and the sizing that goes with that.

Instead of imagining players on a linear spectrum of tendencies, imagine them on a 2-dimensional grid. On the lower left we have the tight and passive nits. On the lower right we have the loose and passive calling stations. On the upper right we have the loose and aggressive 'lags' and maniacs, and in the upper left we have the tight and aggressive 'tags' (who win most of the microstakes chips).

In the middle area we have the balanced GTO players but we won't see many of them at low stakes.
 
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You want to be active early in an MTT to build stacks to make FT runs. It is much better to 3 bet 65s IP with 200bb's than to wait till you have a 30bb stack for instance. GTO Wizard free version is excellent to see bottom of range 3 bets in early MTT big stacks. Ignore the 0 ev bluffs but add in the +ev hands like 65s if you are not already doing that.

🤔🤓
 
Good point about tight and aggressive being two different things. I also like the idea of being active early when stacks are deep, because waiting until 20–30BB can leave you with far fewer options. I’m still learning this part of MTTs, so the 65s example is interesting to me.
 
Depends on other players although being balanced aggresive is profitable in longer run .If your opponents are too tight you can loose your range to gather more chips and exact opposite if your opponents are too loose so its sort of balanced dynamic approach
 
Semprini said:
the way that you have worded this makes me think that you are making the far too common error of thinking that tight and aggressive are opposites. Loose or wide is the opposite of tight and pertains to ranges. Aggressive and passive are opposites and pertain to frequency of betting/raising and the sizing that goes with that.

Instead of imagining players on a linear spectrum of tendencies, imagine them on a 2-dimensional grid. On the lower left we have the tight and passive nits. On the lower right we have the loose and passive calling stations. On the upper right we have the loose and aggressive 'lags' and maniacs, and in the upper left we have the tight and aggressive 'tags' (who win most of the microstakes chips).

In the middle area we have the balanced GTO players but we won't see many of them at low stakes.
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That makes a lot of sense. I was probably looking at these two things as if they were the same. Some players play fewer hands, while others play a lot more. And some players are more aggressive, while others prefer to call and wait. I think the 2D grid is a much easier way to understand different types of players. At lower stakes, you can see many different playing styles. I think the important thing is to understand how each player likes to play instead of simply calling them tight or loose.
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eetenor said:
You want to be active early in an MTT to build stacks to make FT runs. It is much better to 3 bet 65s IP with 200bb's than to wait till you have a 30bb stack for instance. GTO Wizard free version is excellent to see bottom of range 3 bets in early MTT big stacks. Ignore the 0 ev bluffs but add in the +ev hands like 65s if you are not already doing that.

🤔🤓
Click to expand...
Having a big stack early gives you more room to play and put pressure on other players, while waiting until you have a smaller stack can leave you with fewer options. I also think the key is not to play aggressively just for the sake of it, but to choose the right spots and understand which hands are worth taking a chance with. The idea of studying the weaker hands that can still be profitable is interesting too, because those are probably the spots I tend to overlook.
 
Das991992 said:
Good point about tight and aggressive being two different things. I also like the idea of being active early when stacks are deep, because waiting until 20–30BB can leave you with far fewer options. I’m still learning this part of MTTs, so the 65s example is interesting to me.
Click to expand...
That’s what makes MTTs so interesting. 65s doesn’t look great at first, but in the right spot it can do some damage. Poker really does love making simple things complicated
 
wavefunction said:
Depends on other players although being balanced aggresive is profitable in longer run .If your opponents are too tight you can loose your range to gather more chips and exact opposite if your opponents are too loose so its sort of balanced dynamic approach
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I think that’s the key. You can’t just follow one style all the time. If people are too tight, you can be a bit more active, and if they’re too loose, you need to be more careful. Adjusting to the table makes the game much more interesting.
 
I don't think there is a single formula you can follow in tournament poker. Every tournament is different, every table is different, and even every hand can present a completely different situation. The stage of the tournament, the blind levels, your stack, the stacks of your opponents, your position and the way your opponents are playing can all change what the best decision is. A strategy that works at the beginning of a tournament might not be the right approach near the bubble or at the final table. For me, the key is learning to adapt rather than trying to follow a fixed formula. Sometimes you need to be patient and protect your stack, while in other situations you need to take a risk and put pressure on your opponents. There are also moments when building a big stack is more important than simply trying to survive. I think that's one of the things that makes tournament poker so interesting. You can't just play the same way from the first hand to the last. You have to understand the situation, read the table and make the best decision you can with the information available at that moment
 
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