Large Field MTT's

I was having a discussion the other day with someone regarding large field WSOP events at the $1000 and $1500 level and if they represented value or not. The problem with any large field is that conventional tournament strategy can make it very difficult to win the event and I will explain why that is.

Firstly by large fields then I am referring to situations where the field is at least 1000 players deep. Now it is well known that there will be many fish in that event but here is the funny thing about tournament fish……many of them will play too many hands. The result is that some of these fish amass a lot of chips. Just before you start to rub your hands in glee then think again. Not only will their stack be far bigger than yours and in many cases ten times or more….but they will cease to become fish in many cases simply because they have a big stack.

So they tighten up or can bully the smaller stacks which probably include you. Now at this stage then you may have done absolutely nothing wrong but you don’t need to have done so to stand no chance of winning. So what does this mean?

It means of course that you may never have the optimal style to win any event with a massive field unless you are prepared to either gamble or play in what you consider to be a sub-optimal way.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays at www.pokerstars.co.uk