Just wondering what you all think of late registering for tournaments. When I started playing I enjoyed the deep SNGs with 27 or 45 players but the sites I play on now don't have that. It is MTT with 1-hour late reg. I personally can't stand late registration but since it's there then I use it.

So when I started playing tournaments, I would late register really late. I always felt I played better with a smaller stack too. I was having good success when I signed up, then I noticed that I started trying to be like other players who had more success than me. I tried some of their tricks and they worked sometimes but generally I found them to be stupid plays, which was my first impression but I tried them out anyway...probably not the smartest thing.

I started to register much earlier for tournaments too so that I could play more poker. One of the other players I saw play a lot was always registered early so I thought I should change it up. It worked for me at first, I felt like it was much better that way and felt like it was almost impossible to profit from registering late like I originally was doing.

Lately though I started to late register again and have been having pretty good success. When I buy-in I'm like right around middle of the pack and there's almost half the entrants gone already. I like to be able to leapfrog over those players and eliminate all that time playing. There are times you accumulate a stack but I don't know I feel for my style of play I like registering late and taking a shot...if I bust then it's not a lot of time wasted.

When I register late I have a pretty good strategy that allows me to see some flops and play some poker. I just can't really play any post-flop poker but I've been making the money more regularly. Sometimes there are just loose players with big stacks that will pay you off. It just seems like it's working so much better this way.

One thing I don't like is that I feel like I'm playing a lot more tighter this way and then if I make it down to the final table its harder to adjust and loosen my game up when in the money. I don't know what it was yesterday but I wasn't comfortable at the final table and it was just all fish. I didn't have much of a stack or get any cards but idk fish just scare me sometimes.

Sounds like variance. You probably ran good when you late registered for a few tournaments, therefore you're coming to the conclusion that late registration is best. You need to test these things over several thousand tournaments before you can come to any sort of conclusion.

Yea well I registered late like last minute for this one tournament last night. Walked away with min cash which I wasn't very happy about but at least I cashed. I was up to 2nd in chips in this big tournament with a sweet stack. Almost right at the bubble, no one had enough to knock me out. But I get dealt KK...played it pretty much the best way you could but he was holding JJ and hit a set on the flop. Boom double up for that ass and he had a pretty nice stack too so of course I get down pretty low, not horrible but I pretty much had to push.

Pushed in and this guy won the flip on me to knock me out.

I don't know it feels like I'm limiting variance by jumping in there late. It definitely takes some luck that I have to win a double up but that can come down to a coin flip or come down to where the odds are really in my favor.

I just knew after building up that stack that I'd get screwed. Sure enough KK...oh well back tonight prob try the same thing

Your way of thinking is way way way too results oriented. It's best to not focus on that because it will completely halt any progress you can make.

There's multiple good reasons not to register late. First of all you get the chance to grind up a stack before you are forced to test your flipping skills. Then there's the thing that fish tend to bust more rapidly than better players and therefor you miss out on their chips when you aren't there from the start. This of course is assuming you play a deeper stack better than the average, but even if this isn't the case you can just nut peddle the first levels and wait for a fish to stack off before blinds get high.

You make good points. I'm not gonna do that anymore. I'm not opposed to it though. If I have to then I would do it. It's just good to cut out that hour or 40 minutes of play and jumping ahead of the people who already busted. It's just not the optimal strategy.