The Effect of Blind Structure on Early MTT Play

[Lloyd]

This is something I've been thinking a lot about but just can't settle in on a good answer. How does the blind structure effect the ideal strategy during the early levels of an MTT? And by blind structure I'm refering to both how long levels last and the amount of blinds/antes.

Here are the early blind levels of a few different formats:

Party $109
T1000 Starting Chips
15 minutes/level
Level 1: 10/15
Level 2: 10/20
Level 3: 15/30
Level 4: 25/50
Level 5: 50/100
Level 6: 75/150
Level 7: 100/200

Party $350K Guaranteed
T1500 Starting Chips
20 minutes/level
Same structure as Party $109

WSOP $1500 NLHE
T1500 Starting Chips
60 minutes/level
Level 1: 25/25
Level 2: 25/50
Level 3: 50/100
Level 4: 100/200
Level 5: 100/200 (25a)
Level 6: 150/300 (50a)
Level 7: 200/400 (50a)

WSOP $5000 NLHE
T5000 Starting Chips
75 minutes/level
Level 1: 25/50
Level 2: 50/100
Level 3: 100/200
Level 4: 100/200 (25a)
Level 5: 150/300 (50a)
Level 6: 200/400 (50a)
Level 7: 300/600 (75a)

Now, to make sense of the various structures and try and measure the differences, I created a spreadsheet that takes into consideration all of these factors plus the number of hands seen per hour and the number of players per hand. For online MTTs I assumed 60 hands per hour and for live MTTs I assumed 38 hands per hour. I assumed 10 players per table. I'm not sure how many players will be at the tables of the WSOP events but I don't think it will make a HUGE difference for this purpose.

So taking into consideration all of this I calculated the number of hands that can be seen if a player just posted and folded - playing no hands whatsoever. This is one way of measuring how fast or slow a structure is. Here are the results:

Party $109: 100 Hands
Party $350K: 140 Hands
WSOP $1500: 134 Hands
WSOP $5000: 192 Hands

So, as can be expected the $5000 WSOP event is the slowest of the four. The Party $109 is the fastest although it isn't as bad as some. And the Party $350K Guaranteed and WSOP $1500 events are about the same and in the middle. How should we vary our play based on these structures.

Well, I don't have any great answers but hope that we can collectively come up with a framework. Here are some initial thoughts.

1) The faster the structure, the more careful you have to be about getting too involved with a marginal hand. I'm talking about post-flop here. You limp in with a few people, call a bet on the flop, and next thinkg you know a huge chunk of your stack is tied up with a middle pair.

2) The faster the structure, the more important it is to press your small edges. Pressing those edges is always important, but with a fast structure they are critical. You don't have time to wait around for a big hand and need to accumulate chips quickly.

3) The slower the structure, the more reasonable it becomes to limp with marginal/speculative hands from early position. This is a tough one for me. I like to play hands like 65s from EP because they offer huge odds if you hit against a big pair. But doing a lot of limping in a fast structure is a quick way of bleeding off chips.

I've got to take off for a bit so I'll stop there. Hopefully we'll get some insightful responses from others.

[A_PLUS]

Good post.

Id really be interested in reading about how people try to skate the fine line between point #1 and point #2. Not going to far with marginal hands, and pressing small edges tend to work against each other.

For instance, you raise an unopened pot from the CO w/ KTs. You get min raised from a moderately aggressive BB. You flop top pair, and he leads out for the pot.

Now lets just say that the pot with his raise is 5-10% of your stack, and you are still in the 1st 25% of the MTT. Playing this hand varies greatly over structures, and I really struggle knowing when it is correct to play this fast, or slow.

[Lloyd]

Thus the conflict. With a fast structure you need to build up a big stack quickly, and playing hands that offer great odds is a way to do so. But play too many of those hands and you're shortstacked.

[bruce]

Excellent post.

Point #1 appears to be backwards. In a slow event marginal hands can be quickly abandoned. In a fast event, yea, with
a marginal hand you can lose most of your chips, but the blinds are going up every 15 minutes. It seems to me that gambling with marginal hands early, even if I might be a slight dog intuitively makes sense. Personally, I don't
play like that. I don't get real excited about racing five
minutes after the tournament begins, but if that style
works for you it makes more sense to play this way in a fast event.

Another important difference is early in slow events with
deep stacks stealing blinds is not important. Later in the event when blinds and antes are bigger
stealing out of position can be catastrophic. In a fast event I am much more likely to steal out of position with
large blinds. If I don't pull the trigger I may not get
a chance to try again before the blinds increase.

Bruce

[Sluss]

My inital thoughts are to play your marginal hands faster in the faster structure and more passively in the slower structure.

Because it is easier to get away from hands when you have more play, playing marginal hands out of position would be better in the deeper structure. It is harder to play your draws hard out of position.

So in a faster strucure try and take down more pots earlier in the hand. Building chips in a bunch of hands. In a slower strucure if your in a big pot, have a big hand.

[PrayingMantis]

These are interesting thoughts, but as a general note, I think that the more impotant factors in adjusting to different structures are how other people are seeing the same structure, and what is your knowledge of your opponents and their of you. The speed of the levels can be particularly irrelevant in some aspects, since your decisions should be basically made with regard to stack/blinds ratio, pot-odds and implied odds - therefore it doesn't matter if the blinds go up every 1 hour or 2 hours, or even every 5 hands.

However, an important difference IMO between long levels and short ones, especially with deep stacks, is that when levels are longer you can actually build an image, and exploit it later on when the stacks are still deep enough. Therefore, if this style fits you, you can play more marginal hands and get into tricker spots even if you think that they are +EV only in terms of future moves. You wouldn't like to do that when levels are really short, because you'll simply won't have enough opportunities to exploit complex mistakes, that people might make against you, as a result of some previous play of yours.

So in general, the longer the first levels are, the closer it is to a normal NL deep stack ring session. The shorter the levels, the closer it is to the first rounds of a SNG played with strangers (as opposed to with regulars), where you simply can't allow yourself to get into marginal situations early on.

[Sluss]

Your always playing people. If you have a tight table or a loose table, etc.

I think the structure effects this as well. If it's a fast structure and a loose table you have to jump in and mix it up. Or risk getting blinded away. If you have a deeper structure you can afford to tighten up and still get some action on big hands from players who will pay you off.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Your always playing people. If you have a tight table or a loose table, etc.


[/ QUOTE ]

Of course you are. That wasn't my point though.

Think about it this way: suppose you are about to play a NL session (not a tournament). If you know you're going to sit there 6 hours with the same people, your decision with regard to your 10 first hands will be different than if you know you're only going to play these 10 hands and then leave the table. This doesn't have much to do with the tightness/looseness of the game per-se, but more with how much value you'll be able to get out of making specific image moves (it's not only about image, it's more complex, you can call it shania if you like).

When you're going to play 10 hands and then leave, there's no future vaule in moves that are aimed at finding tendencies and reactinos in your opponents' behaviours. But if you're going to play a long session, moves that are -EV if are taken without context (i.e, while playing only a few hands), can sometimes have great future value in them.

Now you can translate this to shorter/longer early levels in MTTs.

[jon_1van]

[ QUOTE ]
In a slow event marginal hands can be quickly abandoned

[/ QUOTE ]


Won't this leave more time for you to be pegged as conservative and then your raises won't get any action?