Many of my poker students really want to play tournaments but feel that they just take way too long. They are well studied recreational players who have jobs and families that take up time that they cannot spend on a poker tournament. For this reason, many of them play single or multi table SNGs that require them to be at the computer for less time. First place money in a SNG is much less than what they can win in a tournament though. For this reason, these games do not hold their attention. It’s not ideal, but I came up with a solution for them that may be beneficial as a last resort to you as well. I suggested that they register a couple of small field tournaments, sit out for around the first hour, and start playing when their stack gets to around 50-70bbs. Here’s why I think this is a viable option.
When most players at the table have around 50-70 bbs, I teach my students that they should be looking to get their stack in within the next couple of levels. That’s because this is the stack size where you can start to put limpers to the test for their entire stacks by the river. These players rarely have hands that can stand up to this much heat on scary run outs, but they occasionally surprise you. Playing in this way means you could be out immediately or only have around four hours left to play the times you make the final table as long as the tournament doesn’t have too many players. This should keep your average session length down to between one and two hours.
This approach works because I teach my students that the first few levels of a tournament are more about information gathering than playing hands. I like to say it is a bigger mistake to miss a showdown in the first few levels than it is to open-fold AA from under the gun. Of course this hand is great, but it can be difficult for many people to play well with deep stacks when out of position in a multiway pot. It’s important to play the hand, but it’s more important to look at what your opponents showdown and try to reverse engineer their strategies.
Since this is the primary goal in the early levels, I think it’s fine for my students to let their HUD gather most of this information while they sit out and attend to their lives. This is the main benefit that sitting late has over registering late. You do pay a small price in terms of forfeited blinds and antes, but it’s worth it to get the information. Sure, there are times where you make a big hand and win a big pot against a player with a decent second best hand, but this situation is rare in the first couple of levels. What’s more likely is that you’ll occasionally win a few small pots with big hands and frequently lose several small pots with speculative hands. In the long run, this probably comes out close to even. It’s when you get to 50-70 bbs where you can frequently get your entire stack into play that the real money is won and lost.
Once stacks start to get to around 70 bbs, you should start to pay attention to the tables. HUD stats will give you clues as to who the worst players are, but you should also watch replays of hands they have been in to see the cards they showed down. Seeing one showdown is more reliable than a stat with a small sample size because it shows definitively how a hand was played as opposed to making a frequency based assumption. This is great against players who do not balance their ranges much. You can expect them to play similar hands in the same way in the future. You can save a lot of time by going through this reads gathering process after the fact instead of watching the hands as they happen.
If your HUD indicates that you have several players on your right who raise and call three-bets with too loose of a range, you should take your seat immediately. This makes them vulnerable to multiple barrels post flop than can result in you picking up a lot of chips. In many small stakes games, this will be rare. Instead, these players are more likely to paint themselves into a corner by limping and calling raises with too many hands. You don’t need as many chips to exploit this mistake and you can do it with a wider range because you will be up against a weak capped range if you target the right opponents.
If they are using a HUD as well, these plays should work more often than usual because your stats will be super nitty due to you folding every hand for the first few orbits. They will be more likely to fold to your barrels on scary run outs allowing you to chip up without too much risk until they realize you’re not as tight as you seem, so the fewer weak hands you showdown, the better.
This approach has several additional benefits for recreational players. When stacks are deep in the early levels, you need to be more selective about which hands you get it in with. If you open AA from UTG, get multiple callers, and someone really wants to get a lot of chips in on the river, you should usually fold when stacks are over 100 bbs, but it’s more reasonable to stack off in this spot if you started with 50 bbs. Recreational players hate having to hero fold AA and sitting late can decrease how often they have to do this.
Another benefit is that playing shorter sessions should increase your hourly rate. You miss a lot of opportunity by skipping the early levels, but you gain a substantial time saving that can effectively give you a raise if you play the shorter stacks well. The likelihood that you will be a bit fresher than your opponents in the late game adds to this as well. This comes at a price though. The worst players tend to lose their stacks early, so you miss the chance to play with them. In general, shorter stacks have less expected value because you can only win so much. This reduces your potential ROI and thus requires a bigger bankroll due to the increased variance. For this reason, you should only use this approach in the lowest buy-ins you play.
In my opinion, it’s always best to register and sit at the start of the tournament when you can. This should give you the highest expected value in the long run. If the alternative is not playing at all, or late registering with no information on your opponents, I think registering on time and sitting late is a reasonable option. I think it gives you 80% of the benefits of playing the early levels for 20% of the effort.
