Multi Table Tournament Strategy - Middle Rounds

During the middle rounds of a multi table tournament, reading your opponents becomes more important. In the early rounds, sticking to a very tight, aggressive strategy should get you through to the middle rounds. During the middle rounds, you want to be able to use the reads you have on your opponents more and play a wider variety of hands. If the players in the blinds are weak, you should try to steal the blinds, even if you don't have good cards. If you always notice a certain player calling pre-flop with anything, but you know they will fold if you put in a re-raise, then go ahead and attack them. You don't want to be a total kamikaze in the middle rounds, but you should loosen up your starting hand requirements and use reads that you have gained to your advantage.

How you play the middle rounds will also depend on your stack size at this point. If you are short stacked, you will have to push all in before you get blinded down too far. Try to find a good spot to push all in. You don't want to re-raise all in with a marginal hand when there are already callers. If you can't find a good hand, try to move all in when the pot is unopened and there are not many players to act behind you.

If you are a medium stack, you should use your reads to make good plays. Be aggressive against weak players and small stacks. Be more cautious against larger stacks or very aggressive players. Try to stick to a fairly tight aggressive strategy, at the same time mixing your play up to keep opponents guessing. Often too many medium stacks think they don't have enough chips and will end up going all in with marginal hands. Be patient, and remember that a medium stack is usually only one double up away from becomming a large stack.

If you are a large stack, use your stack to bully smaller stacks when you have good position or you know your oppenents are very tight/weak. Don't raise too many pots with marginal cards, just because you are the big stack. Too much of this and you will quickly lose your stack. Be aware of small stacks whose only move is all in due to their stack size. You don't want to double them up by calling their all in with bad cards.

By: Logan