Early vs Late Registration in MTTs

What’s your opinion on late registration in tournaments? I usually buy in right at the start, but I’ve read that many players prefer to join late to avoid the early all-in chaos. Which approach do you think is more profitable in the long run?

Bazil777 said:

What’s your opinion on late registration in tournaments? I usually buy in right at the start, but I’ve read that many players prefer to join late to avoid the early all-in chaos. Which approach do you think is more profitable in the long run?

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Я предпочитаю позднюю регистрацию, так как игроки начинают играть по совести и не пушат каждую руку!

it depends on how many blinds you have left, if it's 15bb, it's great to enter by late registration, but if it's 3bb, then I wouldn't play here

Bazil777 said:

...I’ve read that many players prefer to join late to avoid the early all-in chaos...

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I do not want to avoid these weak players. It is a easy way to double up.

Personally, I like to register for tournaments just a minute before late reg closes. I’ve noticed this approach gives me better results — I’ve been making it into the money a lot more often.

More hands is better for me(I'm not lucky) and not really interested in all-in bingo. I register 10 mins early to play the terrible players at the start. Easiest competition you'll face all MTT. I wish more MTT's were freezeouts, only offered a max of 60 mins of late registration, limited number of rebuys and had 10+ min blind levels. I'd probably wanna play a lot more poker.

Cheers!!!

I want the good old freeze out back!

kaynbergo said:

it depends on how many blinds you have left, if it's 15bb, it's great to enter by late registration, but if it's 3bb, then I wouldn't play here

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Late reg with 3bb would actually be extremely +EV.

Late regs usually like to come in and bluff wild to build a stack when everyone is thinking about getting past the rebuy stage....
I usually avoid them until the scenario favors me

The argument for showing up late is not to "avoid the early all-in chaos". When you enter late, you will have a shorter stack, so there will be more all-in before the flop situations and not less. Its also not an argument to avoid bad players, because the worse the opponents, the higher your potential winrate. The real reasons for showing up late is to save time and to take advantage of the fact, the value of each chips goes up, when someone bust (ICM).

The ICM argument is however only valid in regular tournaments, because if bounties have been paid out, then the value of each chip goes down not up, since there is now less money left to content for. So in regular tournaments there are pros and cons of entering late, and its largely a matter of personal preference. But in bounty tournaments its decidedly bad to enter, when a lot of players have already been knocked out, especially in formats, where the bounty is large.

Players who are just starting to play poker I consider that they should register at the very beginning of the tournament, and when they gain some experience they can also try late registration. When you sign up also depends on the type of tournament, for example if it is a Bounty tournament you should play it from the start.

Usually playing from the first minute maximizes ROI and max latereg maximizes hourly. But it depends on your edge, rake, rakeback and how many people are left in the tournament at end of registration vs how many are paid (and how big are mincashes). If tournament is setup stupidly with lateregging possible too close to the money, then doing that and stalling every single hand is gonna maximize ROI.

Argument about avoiding all-in chaos is complete nonsense.

The better is from the beginning till about the middle of the late registration. The blinds after that are very big comparing with the starting stack. So if you buy in very late the game becomes more like a ga me of luck, like rolling the dice!

I like to register early on a tourney , most of the times before it starts . I like to play as many hands as possible ,. In very late registration you might find yourself very soon in shove fold mode with 10ore or less blinds .

Bazil777 said:

to avoid the early all-in chaos

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IDK, just missing on free money IMO. Also not every hand is all-in, and during that period you are going to play some relatively decent hands with a stack that is not just 2BB.