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The daily tournaments at the local area casinos seem to be offering 3k to 6k starting stacks with 15 min to 20 min blinds. It seems like the blinds go up real fast (skipping some levels) compared to your stack size. Even when you hit the final table in one of these things players are talking chop 6,7,8, handed. My strategy is to play tight early and leverage my stack later on because everyone is under the same pressure from the blinds. It seems like accumulating a big comfortable stack just isn't going to happen very often in these tournaments. I have a feeling these daily tournaments are designed to get the players in and get them out as quick as possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated here. Maybe I can gain some kind of an edge. Thank you.

Compared with online people tend to fold more often and not resteal as often. So this means you can minraise open smaller stacks that you would online because you can still fold to a reship from some players. Stay aggro on the bubble and just try to put a lot of pressure on the blinds. The main thing in these crappy structures is that you have to not be too tight.

I think the comparison I would make with these quick casino mtts would be with online 45 man sngs. Most of the players in casino mtts under $100 are horrible players. The tournament has to be quick or the rake for casino will be too high. There is still $ to be made as the players are going to make many mistakes. I think it is a myth that a better structure means a bigger edge. These players are going to play way too tight as you approach the money and they will make horrendous folds when they are getting the right price to call. As the blinds get higher an open raise to 2x should be fine if you are not going to push.

The strategy I recommend is to play pretty tight early. There is not enough time in these to build big stacks so you need to increase your equity by letting bad players knock themselves out. I am less likely to try to use pot control when I hit top pair as these are too short and too quick. When blinds hit 100/200 you can probably start min raising when you open. In the middle of the tourney when there are limpers i am going to look for opportunities to push all in on them. I would also look for opportunities to 3bet shove on openers. The avg big blinds will probably go below 10 on the final table so your pushing range panic range can be lower than in normal big onliine mtts. I usually push fold at 15 bb, but live I might go as low as 8 depending on the situation. Shoving on limpers on final table might be good value. I think chopping is pointless as these dont pay alot anyways and if players are looking for a chop then they can be abused because moving up a spot might be worthwhile for them. On the final table make sure you have a plan when you open min rasie on the final table (if you are not shoving). You are not deep enough to fold too often. You might have a plan to call every shove except for the one guy who has you covered as an example. Your relative chip stack compared to your opponents is as important as your big blinds. Lets say you have 12 bb utg with AJ s and you are second in chips and 3rd and everyone else has less than 6 bb. You can min raise here and plan on folding to the chip leader if you think that person not good enough to exploit that.

I have been playing the 45s on carbon lately and I have been doing a lot better when I dont use the whole range of the equilibrium push/fold strategy. Gaining maximum value is not as worth it as in an mtt with hundreds of players. I tighten up a lot more in early postion when I am in top 2 or 3 in chips even if I have only like 8 bbs. I look to shove when 2 or 3 players are left to act if I open shove and I have them covered. I used to just follow the equilibrium push/fold strategy but I was getting knocked out too much. You can not get knocked out with JTs with 10bb when are second in chips.

Ok enough rambling, I hope this helps.

For the beginning and middle stages, playing mostly tight makes sense; you're not gonna win it on the first level, or really make a significant positive impact until the antes kick in (short of horrifically coolering someone or having them spazz off their stack to you). The three most important concepts that have improved my live MTT game recently are:

1) Aggression from LP - if it folds to me, I'm stealing blinds like crazy until given a compelling reason not to (i.e. blinds start to play back one way or another, I hit a stack size where 3b-shoving is higher EV than stealing, blinds are short enough that they start shoving over my steals, etc.) Each set of blinds + antes I steal is one free orbit around the table that I can use to wait out a cold run of cards, let the short stacks hit the blinds again, gather more information on villains, or just play my standard game.

2) Punishing limpers from the blinds - Any pot where there's at least 3-4 limpers (preferrably from MP onward) and I'm in the BB or SB, I'll raise with nearly ATC (but at a reasonable frequency if this situation comes up too often) to something like 3x+1BB for each limper. It's gotten to where I feel like people who limp when I'm in the blinds are just shoveling me their chips -- even with 2-3 callers, you can close your eyes and c-bet a lot of boards and just print money that way.

3) Garden variety squeeze play - Works great from the blinds (for similar reasons as punishing limpers, since you have the right of first bluff if your 3b is called) and from LP (where you can play in position postflop if called). You have to be more selective with cards, opponents and situations than when punishing limpers since someone's already demonstrated aggression, but still another great way to keep your stack afloat with nearly ATC when you're card dead.

For the beginning and middle stages, playing mostly tight makes sense; you're not gonna win it on the first level, or really make a significant positive impact until the antes kick in (short of horrifically coolering someone or having them spazz off their stack to you). The three most important concepts that have improved my live MTT game recently are:

1) Aggression from LP - if it folds to me, I'm stealing blinds like crazy until given a compelling reason not to (i.e. blinds start to play back one way or another, I hit a stack size where 3b-shoving is higher EV than stealing, blinds are short enough that they start shoving over my steals, etc.) Each set of blinds + antes I steal is one free orbit around the table that I can use to wait out a cold run of cards, let the short stacks hit the blinds again, gather more information on villains, or just play my standard game.

2) Punishing limpers from the blinds - Any pot where there's at least 3-4 limpers (preferrably from MP onward) and I'm in the BB or SB, I'll raise with nearly ATC (but at a reasonable frequency if this situation comes up too often) to something like 3x+1BB for each limper. It's gotten to where I feel like people who limp when I'm in the blinds are just shoveling me their chips -- even with 2-3 callers, you can close your eyes and c-bet a lot of boards and just print money that way.

3) Garden variety squeeze play - Works great from the blinds (for similar reasons as punishing limpers, since you have the right of first bluff if your 3b is called) and from LP (where you can play in position postflop if called). You have to be more selective with cards, opponents and situations than when punishing limpers since someone's already demonstrated aggression, but still another great way to keep your stack afloat with nearly ATC when you're card dead.

I aggree with taking advantage of limpers but you seem to love to raise from the blinds, which can be profitable but I would rather raise from the button with position.

I think one of the main things is not to open fold under 20 bb very often.

I don't like raising from the blinds because I intend to play raised/3-bet pots out of position, I like it because there are so many instances where I'll take the pot down preflop or with an easy c-bet. Plus, villains that aren't thinking about it (or not thinking too hard, at least) tend to give BB/SB raises and 3-bets more credit than they do a button/LP raise, even when it's a beautiful, beautiful spot for a squeeze with almost ATC (i.e. cutoff attempts to steal, SB calls, BB 3-bets -- gets through the original raiser super often leaving you in position vs. SB who hates life in this spot unless he's playing the top of his range, in which case, why is he flatting with action behind?)