Turbo MTT strategy

Playing in a Turbo MTT often carries extra pressure for the participants, pressure which forces them to make mistakes very early on.

A Turbo MTT has much shorter blinds intervals, and smaller starting stacks. This means inexperienced players will see several reasons to push their stack all-in on hands like A,Jo or 5,5 very early on. Turbo MTTs reward aggressive and daring players after all, don’t they? The fact is though, that Turbo tournaments should not be treated any differently from their traditional variants for the first quarter of an hour to 20 minutes. What you need to do in the beginning of a Turbo MTT is the same thing you do in the hour and a half of a regular MTT: wait for good hands and act aggressively on them, especially if you’re in position. Avoid committing all your chips against an overly aggressive foe that early in the game, although if you consider that many other players do indeed fall into the trap of becoming way to aggressive on rags, that may not be such a bad move after all especially if you’re doing it on a good hand.

You shouldn’t exactly risk too much in order to get your hands on some blinds either. At this stage of the tournament, the blinds are just not worth it. According to a fundamental poker theory, when the blinds are small, you should play tight and when the blinds are large (due to the much better pot odds you get) you should act more aggressively. Well, in this case the blinds are small so save your gunpowder for later.
Blinds stealing will be a move destined for failure on account of another fact too. In the beginning of a Turbo MTT, you’re much more likely to get a call from one of your opponents because they tend to act much looser than usual as well. On top of that, the guy in the BB can usually hardly wait to mount a defense and he will not be deterred to shove all his chips in if that’s what things come down to.

One healthy approach towards the early-stage Turbo MTT strategy is to aim for the exploitation of the implied odds. Play as many small hands that can turn into big hands as possible. Take small pocket pairs for instance. Those will fail to make a set on the flop most of the time, but when they do make one, you’re bound to take down a huge pot in the loose environment that the Turbo nature of the game gives birth to.

It even makes sense to call a preflop raise on such a small pocket pair from a player who you know is endowed with a big pair in the pocket. Roughly one in 8 times you will catch your set, and then you’ll most probably double up on the guy who will probably refuse to muck his big pair.
What you need to pay attention to is that your opponent should have a large enough stack to justify going after him, that is, he will be able to give you the right pot odds.

In a Turbo MTT, letting your opponents commit mistakes is the way to go. This is a sound strategy in a regular MTT as well, where some people will still overplay their weak hands despite the lack of pressure, in a Turbo MTT however the approach is much more efficient because of the added pressure.