I wanted to open up to people's thoughts on late registration, maybe targeted at the Micro MTTs. I've noticed that the play in these tournaments is pretty soft and I figured I would try something out a couple days ago.

With basic ABC poker, paying attention to M ratio and using basic push/fold charts for 10bb>, I'm having a solid start at this late registering idea.

What I'm struggling with is figuring out if this is a horrible, ok, or good idea. Going through the pros and cons, I'm not even sure the pros are pros. Here's my thoughts:

Pros -
1. FT job & family man so I have limited time, but I love MTTs and get to play them more (only an objective reason for me).
2. You have to get lucky once or twice to get to a final table in MTTs and the strongest parts of my game are 20BB> anyway.
3. They're rare, but you skip the crappy MTTs where you bust out getting your stack in before lvl ~10.
4. You're starting the tournament with a 1/4 of the field done or rebuying and are starting that much closer to the end.
5. Example, in a 3000 chip MTT, after an hour or two, on average, my stack is in the 2000-6000 range anyway with the rare times that I'm already killing the field or done.

Cons -
1. They're rare, but you never get any tournies where you safely build your stack through steals, hot cards, and easy play because you're always skipping the first hour or two.
2. THE BIG CON - You're always starting low... the orange zone... from behind... however you want to think of it.

*** Please, chime in and give me all your thoughts!

One very good thing about joining super late is the ability to practice as the short stack, for a small fee. You can try the push monkey shove with ATC or practice the art of patience and either wait for strong hole cards or shove when there are enough chips that you would triple up, or so, and pot odds say to call.

You get to bypass a ton of variance, which is good, but you are also under the gun the entire way. It is very important to pay attention to the open seating order. The tables load from bottom up of the shortest seats. You would be best to try to avoid seating at tables where your starting stack is minuscule compared to every other player. Sometimes it doesn't align, but like every other aspect of poker, patience has a key role in late entry.

I have applied the strategy as well and the times I get to final tables on ACR has always been when I late reg for coming in between 15 -20 bb.

I am a learning and studied player and I am fine with coming in at 15-20bb stack to make it final table. 11 hour games are a bit much 8 hours in a game is alright to play.

I appreciate the feedback and its good to know I'm not completely alone in this. I love MTTs, especially the mid-late game. Hell, I don't mind the early game because it can be fun to hit implied odds hands that I don't get to play late. It's just a time thing I rarely have 6+ hours to invest.

What I guess I want to make sure is that I'm not throwing away tons of value by doing this. That I shouldn't just stick to SNGs because of my time commitment and call it a day.

Question for you, if WPN shortened the late reg significantly would you be more inclined to to start a tournament from the very beginning?

if you are a good player you are surrendeing expectation with every hand u miss in a tourney, therefore every minute that goes by that u could have registered and did not, you are surrendeing expectation. there is no doubt my ROI would correlate with when I get in the tourney. get in at the start, highest ROI. get in at last minute of late reg, my ROI has decreased, most likely by a fair margin. no doubt u can still churn profits by late regging but I think what I stated holds true. a total fish is prolly a guy who benefits most by late regging really late.

Yes, because it would shorten the total time of the entire tournament overall to something more manageable.


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I see your point. I guess the question is "Given a winning player, how much are they giving up by not playing the first 2 hours of a standard ACR MTT?"

For example, it's great to double from someone donking off their stack, but what's the difference to it being the first hand vs. 2 hours in vs. the final table? I guess that's what ICM helps us determine.


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And I feel the same way. I don't play any mtts on WPN because of the long late reg. I understand that they want to make sure they meet the guarantees but one does wonder how many people are put off from playing because the tournies take so long.

Disagree that you have get lucky to win WPN MTTs. I have played numerous MTTs on Stars and some on ACR where I was never All in for my entire stack as an underdog.

I should clarify that I'm generalizing when I say that. In my experience, the average MTT means getting your stack in at least once before being in the money or higher, especially since my goal is to win and not to cash. But, for you, are you someone who on average is never needing to risk their stack before getting in the money or higher?


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You've never been to the WSOP Main Event series then. The first registrations are almost ALL new players to the event. Some of the pros, Hellmuth, make such a stupid spectacle when they enter and it is 4+ hours after the tournament starts. I've played the series three different years going back to 2004, nothing has changed. The room is half empty at the start. Tables are brought in over the course of hours due to all the later registrations. I see no correlation to the timing you sit down and winning rate. Last week in the 6 PM BIG10 I mucked my cards almost the entire first hour. Most of your chips in a tournament are captured in short runs where you catch great flops. If you play in the higher stakes MTTs, there is not typically any large gaps in the LB the first hour or two. Keep the pot/risk small until it truly matters is how most experienced players play. A $3 donkfest with 3-5 hours of late registration may be a different scenario altogether, but if you are playing with decent players, there is not much movement in the early levels.

I will say that you are correct in a theoretic way, but that surrendering of value can just as easily be offset by variance and sloppy play that hits big against you big pocket pairs.

Registering super late is/should based on the math. Use a bastardized version of implied odds/EV and apply it to the entry point. If you need to jump over 200 people to cash...go for a walk instead. If there is only 15-20 players and the bubble is less than a triple up, it is worth a shot if you can seat at the right table. If there are other players that will be to your left that are not very deep in chips, they are probably vulnerable, especially if they have been sitting for a long time and now stressing the bubble. Sitting at a table where everyone has you out chipped 3+/1....back to going for some fresh air.

It is only a preference. I don't have any trouble starting with players that have more chips than I do, say halfway through the registration period. I am pretty confident in my ability to chip up if I catch some cards. Others feel most at ease when it is a level playing field, like level 1.

Super late registration in a micro game is good practice for learning patience. There will be times that you are outside the bubble, (even if you start on time....), and feel under the gun to make a move. Spending a couple of bucks and entering the last minute or two of a little MTT can get you used to walking up to the bubble from the bottom of the LB. Early registration can help you build patience in waiting through the long periods of time when you are getting Q/3 offsuit almost every hand. Both have aspects have their use for building/re-enforcing skills and patience levels, aside from that it is just a preference and not a formulation of when is the best time to enter.

I am a small ball MTT player. I don't like to play big pots unless I have a big hand. The only exception is with big PPs pre-flop

Live events like the main event have supper-slow structures. Not the same as some 10 buck online MTT

Some yes, some no. They also have turbos and plenty register late.

The chip levels jump faster, percentage wise, at the WSOP, too.

Still, even though levels are 2 hours long, there are still a hundred plus that are out level 1, on that basis you are ahead. If you look at the amount of players for the 10K televised event this past year, 6737 entered and more than half entered on day 3, with half registering late that day.

The WSOP M.E. that everyone knows is 10 hour increments or about the same for a large entry on WPN. You also don't see anywhere near 60 hands an hour in the WSOP, more like 30-35.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. Why do the pros always seem to come late to all of these tournaments? I agree that you're technically giving up value as a winning player, but I can't imagine it would be that much value if the pros don't mind showing up 4 hours late.


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It is an experience thing, that is all. Play enough hands and you realize that cards turn good and bad, good hands lose and garbage wins sometimes. It comes down to patience. To conflate it to another analogy, teenagers are always afraid they will miss something if they are not out with their friends. The same theory applies. Many experienced players will try to balance out the loss of potential hands against the avoidance of early variance, finding the entry point that works for you is a first hand process.

In no way is this a slight towards anyone that posts in the forum, but there is no qualification as to giving 'advice'. I would say every civil post is done with good intent, but what experience is behind the comment? I have read different posts in various forums where someone is trying to explain EV, implied odds, or some aspect of GTO that is fundamentally incorrect.

I may or may not have more experience or exposure in the poker world than someone else posting on a thread. It seems many new players are in search of a 'system' or can't fail method of winning. It doesn't exist. I, personally, do best when I enter halfway through an extended registration. A friend registers early and does well for himself. Different strokes for different folks is what it comes down to.

Take tidbits of what everyone says as a personal reference or recommendation and then try out the ones that fit your personality and mechanics the best. There is no right way or wrong way to enter a tournament that fits all players.

The best thing about the micros is you can experiment with it and not pay a lot of money to learn the ins and outs.

some of the best online mtt players in the world late reg every tourn they play so to say that you are losing out i feel is incorrect
tonka for instance i know does this and is top 10 I'm guessing?

Actually this is what I do for every MTT I play in pretty much. Cba to sit there for 3 hours at 10/20 blinds when I end up in the same spot playing for 3 hours and accumulating 5800 chips or late regging with 5k chips and have pretty much the same stack. Go to the gym and come home and play when blinds are higher. Build up a stack fast and crush.

I would. Didnt realize how long they take being new to network

Jumping in at the last second really becomes a crap shoot with 4-6bb starting stack,

I never start at the beginning of an MTT i usually enter mid way thru with like an hour and 1/2 left of registration,

I wont re-enter in MTTs (cause in my mind that MTT is now tainted and with payouts so deep you have to almost FT to get money back for 2 buy ins)

make me wonder how many other people do this compared to the number of people who just get turned off by how long late reg is and then wonder does this help with the gtds at all. Have 5 hrs late reg some will wait 4hrs 55 min to reg,

Wish they would try an experiment and go back to 2 hours late reg in all mtts and see how much difference there is (I mean Im probably wrong after looking at some of the carbon mtts where some will renter 10x in one mtt) but if its not that much difference then please go to 2 hrs late reg

Late reg can be good but you can expect a lot of variance. When joining an MTT with 10-15 bb it's going require you to win multiple all-ins quickly which isn't easy to do, especially in full ring games with a decent amount of regs around at the end of registration. If I super late reg on ACR it will almost always be a short handed game because it's easier to get a stack going.

The rebuy tournaments are also ok for late reg because the fields seem to be so much softer and you have the benefit of an add on.

All in all you need to get decently lucky, but if you can, the bubble isn't far away and you can get a lot of cashes but it's probably harder to make a real run at the top 3 that way. The amount of fish around in the early stages just giving stacks away makes it hard for me to justify starting short stacked.