How does pre flop bet sizing change as you get deep in a MTT? I used to think that you used 3-5 times the big blind throughout but i recently watched some videos of some good MTT players and their bet sizes late was are 2-2.75 times the big blind and more on the lower half of that range. When does this change happen and why is there a change in bet sizing?

3betting has become much more common and opening smaller protects your stack. For example, folded to you in MP and you, 80bb stack open to 4x with AQo, standard, CO 3 bets 10bb, BB shoves, obv fold, right? Fact is, same action is likely to occur if you raised 2.5x to open and then you save 1.5bb's. Also, fish in the bb will call lighter if they're closing the action and it will be HU, so you're in position against bad hands with the betting lead. They call with hands that would fold to a 4x bet, so you make more money as long as you realize they have a slightly wider range than normal, if you're a decent hand reader and can get away from marginal hands, you should have the advantage.

mind asplosion

But is it not a bit dangerous because its giving players a better price to come in with lesser hands, and possibly outflop us.

In MTTs, I like to raise 3x in the early stages. By around 100/200, I start opening 2.5x and then when antes come in, like 250/500/50 and later, raise around 2.25x.

When we're deeper, stacks are shallower so, a) You're not going to have as much of a stack to play with postflop and, b) People are more likely to 3bet shove over you.

Because of these factors above, we have to open less so we lose less when we fold to 3bets, and also so we can adapt postflop to how our opponent plays his hand. Also, this is the reason why postflop betsizing is smaller as tournaments go deep (shallower stacks so people can't peel as often).

i agree why lost 3.5 when you could jsut lose 2.5

Plus, since players tend to 3-bet you multiples of what you originally raised, you can make a cheaper call to see the flop. If you raise 2.5bb with 22, and someone with AA raises you small to get you to call, you can call and your paying less money to see if you get a set.

You'll need to be reeeeeeaaallly deepstacked to make a correct call of a 3bet with the intention of setmining. You need to have 20:1 implied odds to setmine so say it's 50/100 and you raise to 250. He makes it 750... the effective stack will have to be >100bbs.

Yeah, but remember, you'll have position. I play TAG so I try to limit bad RIO spots by playing premium starting hands and folding classic rio hands in EP [KQ, KJ, QJ, A9, etc]. Make a cbet, let V act and go from there. You can pick up free rivers when V checks turn if you want to take them which can be huge when turning draws against certain players. it forces V to risk a lot of money making a move with a check raise as well. So as long as you factor in the wider range a BB will have, and understand solid post-flop play, you'll be fine.

lol yea

Its a matter of stack sizes. If its folded to you on the btn with a 200BB effective stack, you need to raise bigger to protect your hands because they will have higher implied odds. If you are 10BB deep, then even if you minraise you basically end up pot committed after a continuation bet, so you wont worry too much about someone calling your minraise with 93 and flopping some weird 2 pair and stacking you when you are in the BTN with AA, because he wont have enough IO to make it an EV+ decision.

it should be noted that this is true of cash games too. The deeper you are, the more you should be raising preflop.

Getting outflopped when you're 30BB's deep is of little concern since you're basically committed to whatever you hit with anyway. If you minraise KK instead of 3x and the flop comes QJ2, you probably arent folding no matter what happens. The difference is it allows you to steal light since you are likely getting shoved on regardless of your raise size. If you're particularly loose it's also good for balancing your range so you can raise suited connectors and stuff from EP without getting shoved on too often.

Interesting. So, suppose we are 300bb deep. It is folded to us on the button and we have AA. How much do we raise? What if we have 98s here, or J8o? What if we are UTG?

Well imagine if you are playing NL2, and for some reason you have amassed a stack of $25. Someone else has done the same, and he raises to $0.06. You're probably gonna call with just about any two cards here because you could potentially win 1200BB's or whatever. Some people therefore advocate raising larger to make it incorrect for someone to chase random hands against you. Of course this has varying consequences because not everyone may be as deep as you, in fact nobody may be this deep but the two of you, so basically you're only playing someone HU in a full ring game ignoring the other 7 players. Furthermore we still want people to pay off our bets, not make them fold every hand, so we dont want to blast people out of the pot preflop. This is why deepstacked poker is so difficult, it's a delicate balancing act between getting value and not getting screwed. Lastly, if if the majority of the table becomes deep, they may not understand how this changes the dynamic of the game. They'll continue to play the same as when they had 100BB's, so now you're juggling the difficulty of playing vs opponent X who is on a draw and opponent Z who is calling with middle pair because thats what he always does. Who do you get value from and how? But I digress...