Tournaments: Should I tighten up or open my ranges?

[Feats]

In your opinion, what’s the best approach in tournaments: tightening up or opening up ranges? I’ve played a few freerolls on GG and I often end up short-stacked, needing to find a spot to double up. I’m not sure if it’s common, but my VPIP is usually around 25%.

 

[LUKADONCICMVP]

loosen up always nobody like nits.

 

[Feats]

loosen up always nobody like nits.

I’ll put that into practice, thanks!

 

[bowserdon]

Tight at begining loose at the end IMHO

 

[Feats]

Apertado no começo, solto no final, na minha humilde opinião

I appreciate, I will keep that in mind for my next freerolls

 

[primrose]

Tight at begining loose at the end IMHO

This is generally correct. Notably most people do the reverse (calling everything early, especially live but also online, because it feels so cheap, and then getting scared later).

In general ranges should be a little looser than cash (even early) because there is no rake. So start marginally looser than cash, and then get much looser near the end.

 

[Yontox]

Usually in the earlier stages of a tournament your VPIP will be high, in the middle stages you might want to tighten up a bit, look for good spots to exploit your opponents.

 

[sandy358]

In your opinion, what’s the best approach in tournaments: tightening up or opening up ranges? I’ve played a few freerolls on GG and I often end up short-stacked, needing to find a spot to double up. I’m not sure if it’s common, but my VPIP is usually around 25%.

Depends. If we compare it to cash ranges, you generally want to be looser especially in the beginning. Later in the tournament as the ICM kicks in it will highly depend on your stack size relatively to the field. If you are a mid-stack with a lot to lose you will have to play much tighter, especially against opponents who cover you. If you are a short stack with not much players lower than you, you should play somewhat GTO-ish, as ICM doesn't affect you that much. If you are the table's chip leader you kinda want to loosen up and be more aggressive against mid stacks (unless they disregard ICM).

Also consult the short-stack ranges. As a shortstack you will have to make a lot of preflop rejams (especially 20BB-) and just open jams (basically the only thing you can do 10BB-). Doubling up won't take that long with knowing these.

 

[fundiver199]

I’m not sure if it’s common, but my VPIP is usually around 25%.

That sounds just about right for tournaments played on 8-handed tables with an ante, as is most common today. As for "ending up short-stacked", thats just how tournaments work, so dont worry about it

 

[steve01991]

the game is ever changing and so should your style of play. my game is always different during tournaments . if you stay on one path, people take notice and they will play accordingly