I'm sure this has been discussed before but I am new to the forum so cut me a little slack. I am also relatively new to poker so I am not a big shot or anything.

Anyway, it seems like if you go into the low-stake tournaments there are a lot of people of the mindset that you have to double up early. I think this because there is a large percentage of people who love to double up early and then they will actually start playing rather passively after that. Are these people just dumb or are they on to something?

I'm playing a tourney right (3.00 buy in daily tournament) On the second or third hand I folded two pairs 2's and 4's (I was only playing because I was in the big blind, did not enter voluntarily). And the guy goes all in (which is like 50 times the pot size or more). Isn't it reasonable for me to think he has a set or something? I folded because I thought most reasonable people wouldn't go all in with a top pair. But then later on in the tournament he kept making the same exact play, He's about to bust out now.

My point is do I have to make stupid calls assuming people are going to play this manical? Again, it's very low stake. I guess I should have called the two pair?

In the long term, shoving early in the tournament - double or nothing, is definitely -EV, far worse than cash games (look up ICM). If you make two pair+ early in a penny stake / freeroll MTT, it's a fist pump shove for the reasons you described.

As to why people shove repeatedly early in a MTT, here's my two cents.

Why I shove ATC myself at penny stake / freeroll tournaments: they just aren't worth my time! Yay, a freeroll with 10k entrants! Do you seriously think I'm gonna patiently wait for AK just to get sucked out on for a chance to win a couple cheeseburger dollars if I happen to land 1st place after some miracle? No I have other tables open with real poker going on. I'm gonna shove shove shove and push my luck until I'm 10x average stack or busto. Think of it this way, the cost of shoving and losing is essentially nothing but if you do manage to win a couple all-in multiway pots then the entertainment value your monster stack provided more than makes up for cost.

A good way to consider the early shovers in low stake tourneys is this: when blinds are low and not worth risking large portions of your stack (as you surmised above) you gain equity in the tournament by having these maniacs make mistakes that bust themselves. Every time your opponents put large portions of their stack at risk against each other, you gain by simply watching it happen. The small pots are simply not worth the risk, and furthermore, large pots should be avoided early in the tourney without the near nuts. It is for these reasons that your opening range in the first few levels (usually before antes) should be exceptionally tight, and increases as the game progresses.

Why is it a stupid call? For the exact reasons you have stated is makes it a perfectly good call.

The reason I point this out is because you need to realise that what may be a "stupid" (bad being a better word) call against one person is a good call against another. You just need to be aware of ranges.

Calling shoves preflop though you should still be very tight in the first few levels. Calling something like A2 against a maniac always shoving may be ahead of his range, but It's still probably -EV (for both of you).

Without getting into too much detail that I'm sure someone else here can add, you should be paying close attention to what sort of hands he's shoving with and how he played them. When you finally get to see his cards two or three times, you will have uncovered a wealth of knowledge and the potential to exploit his play.

One thing you should realize is that he may not be onto some sort of intriguing new idea on how to play. He might not know how to play postflop and that may be how he plays a variety of hands. You need to figure out what it means.

I understand the point you're trying to make, but if you catch him with A8 against his K6, it's +EV. You may not want to risk your tournament life on a 70/30 type flip though if you feel you will have better opportunities to get your chips in the middle in the near future. I just wanted to clear that up.

Probably depends on position, but yeah you're right. I'll edit it to something like A2.

Aggressively hunting big stacks in early levels is not just the preserve of maniacs and fish. Some well documented pros play this way too - actively looking to double/treble up early and happy to take risks to do so. The difference is of course, they don't tighten up with their big stack - they bully with it.

While this is true, it needs to be kept in perspective. If you're playing microstakes tournaments, it's not an advisable approach to go super-lag without having a very strong fundamental base. In fact, at micros, your profits can be found by taking fat value spots against opponents who make too many mistakes. There's no need to go FPS.

^^^^^^^

Think some people forget that exploiting people who are winners at micros who have moved up so the game is different isn't the same as exploiting the masses of "idiots" in micro tournaments.

Is like my micro stakes cash game strategy probably wouldn't work that well at 100nl, whereas 100nl players should play based on their opponents and their own image, i.e. the "correct" way of playing.

Very true...if it is your intention to profit. We also play to learn and move up, experiment and try stuff out, sometimes knowing it is -EV. My point was simply, not everyone playing wide for stacks early on is a fish, doing what they do because they know no better.

Some will be actually thinking about it.

I did hyper lag for a year at $1 45s and $2.5 90s, kept a spreadsheet, did the EV calcs on my attempted double ups and cross related my big stacks to my ITM results. Right now I'm 8 tabling $1 45s playing as a nit. It's all designed to learn. BTW, I'm mainly a cash player, MTT are just my PStars rakeback strategy....with a view to giving myself future opportunities to bink a decent tourney.

Does that make me micro tourney fish...probably, but a least a fish with a brain

Imsavy

Everything I've read suggests that what changes the most as you move up to serious tourney money is fear and fold equity.