MTT's vs. SNG's

[housenuts]

i pretty much only play SNGs. sometimes i dabble in MTTs but i'm not sure how to adapt my play. i wasn't sure if i should post this in this forum, or the MTT one, but i figured the people in here would be more like me, than the primarily MTT players.

how do you differ your style when you play MTTs as opposed to SNGs?

[PrayingMantis]

SNGs and MTT are two very different things. The basic skills of NL tournamant poker are of course relevant for both, but regarding strategic and tactic concepts, they are very different.
These are some points that come to mind:

1. MTT are much longer than SNGs (if you're going to win some serious prize, that is). sometimes it's hours and hours of concentration.

2. MTT are about playing a full table, almost all the time (exept for on the very last stages, final table, or the 2 final tables). In SNGs, huge part of your game is short-handed.

3. Survivial generally plays a much important part in SNG, since SNG are kind of a bubble situation from the minute the begin. IMO (and some disagree), in MTT, especially in the first stages, yoru first concern is accumulating chips. Bubble considerations (survival) become dominant only much later.

4. Another reason for (3) above, is that MTT (certainly on-line) are mostly top-heavy. You play a tourney against a few 100's people field, but you basically want to get into the top 5. In SNGs, as it's pretty much a flat pay-out structure, getting ITM can be very important part of your strategy (although not always). That means you need, first, only to place in top 33% or so.

5. There are many stages in a MTT that you won't find in an SNG. More room for changing gears, playing all sorts of bizzare situations with different chips distribution, playing hours with a huge stack sitting on your left, terrorizing the table for long times when you're huge stack, surviving for a long time as a short stack, waiting for your chance, etc, etc. Lots of complex situations. SNGs, in that respect, are more straight forward.

There are many other things of course, but these are the ones that I think about now.

[RacersEdge]

Good stuff. How new are SNG tournies? I haven't seen a strong distinction in tourney books on SNG vs. MTT - they more assume a MTT structure.

Blind structure - obviously they can't accelerate as much in a MTT as a SNG, but do they even reach the same level as a SNG, or do they flatten out at some max level?

[housenuts]

the blinds increase just as fast. the thing is, new people are always being added to your table, so there's always a good supply of chips. unlike sng's where if they last a while you quickly find yourself with ridiculous blinds compared to the chipstacks.

[The once and future king]

[ QUOTE ]
the blinds increase just as fast

[/ QUOTE ]

On Stars and party this isnt true.

On stars MT blinds increase every 15 minutes and on Party every 10 mins not every ten hands as they do in the SNG's.

[housenuts]

fair enough. hence my post, i don't play enough MTTs to know the difference.