What it takes to win an MTT

I was playing this $25 buy in tourney over at Cake Poker the other night. We were almost to the bubble, 27 players left, 20 got paid, blinds were 400/800 and this was the situation


As you can see from the screenshot, I was in 15th place at that time. But that is actually not the point of this post. If you will take a look at the standings again. You will see 3 players with a comfortable chip lead. Wallst00 was in 1st place with about 33k in chips, Mantech in 2nd with about 25k in chips and grampstol was in 3rd with about 23K.

Just for fun, I decided to sharkscope the 3 chip leaders and these were the results

Wallst00 is a certified fish with an average ROI of -52%, Mantech had lost almost $1400 playing only 320 games and grampstol was also a loser with a -10% ROI and was even on Tilt at that time. And these were the guys with the huge chip lead in this tournament. heheh. As added info, you should know that Sharkscope captures the results of MTTs and SNGs in their Cake stats. So this is pretty much a good profile of these players.

So what does this mean? Is there a conspiracy going on ? Why the heck are certified losers doing well on this MTT? Does this mean I should also play like a fish to win an MTT ?

Not necessarily. But it does point out something important about the dynamics of MTT play. In order to win an MTT, you need to accumulate chips. To accumulate chips, you need to take risks. You cannot expect to win an MTT by playing straight up ABC poker. You may get in the money, but you will be so shortstacked that you would have a slim chance of making the final table where the good money is.

The 3 players happened to be in the chip lead because they are fishes. And fishes love to take risks. They just need a lucky streak or two and they accumulate huge stacks. But 95% of the time, they also bust out early and hence the negative total profits.

I am not saying that you should change your style and suddenly become loose and aggressive. I am just saying thru this example that sometimes to win an MTT, you will need to take certain risks that goes against normal poker logic. It may be something like chasing a flush draw during the early part even if the odds are against you. Or doing a squeeze play in the SB with a small pocket pair. The most common situation is going all-in even though you already know it will be a 50/50 race. It is finding the right balance between your normal tight/correct play and looking for situations where you can take a risk with acceptable odds. That is what it takes to win an MTT.

Just in case you're wondering how I did, I busted out shortly after taking these screenshots when I went all in with 3-3 and got called by Jacks. It may be a dumb move in restrospect but looking at the situation, I was shortstacked with an M less than 10 and was definitely not going to wait until I was blinded out. There are many situations where I would have been called by AK or AQ. And then I would have been slightly ahead. So I was just following my own advice. Heheh.