After you've played thousands of online MTT's and learned lots of poker strategy, it's easy to spot when other players are making foolish mistakes, and capitalize on them. Unfortunately, it takes a while to get to this point, so it's important to know what the biggest mistakes are so you aren't the one being taken advantage of. This being said, here is a look at some of the most common errors made in multi-table tournaments.
Limping in when the Blinds are High
When the blinds increase to a substantial point and your stack starts dwindling, you can't afford to limp into pots just to see the flop. For one thing, you lose a lot of leverage by wasting chips with a marginal hand when somebody raises you. And there is a strong chance that you'll get raised by a big stack when you limp with a below average stack (unless you're on the button). In any case, wait until you have position and/or a strong hand, then raise the pot rather than limping.
Tightening up near the Bubble
Everybody wants to make it into the money when they're in an MTT. This being the case, many people play super-tight near the bubble in hopes of cashing. But the bad thing about this is that you miss out on a key opportunity to capitalize on stealing blinds and small pots. After all, play will open up when the bubble bursts, and if you've given up a large part of your stack by continually folding, you'll most likely be a non-factor later on. Going further, winning your buy-in back isn't really going to be life-changing anyways - unless you spent your entire bankroll on the buy-in of course.
Playing Extremely Loose early on
In their desperation to get out to a big lead early, many people will play really loose in the beginning of MTT's. However, playing overly-aggressive in the early stages of a tournament is the opposite of what you want to do since the blinds are low, and you can wait for better hands. Going further, you normally won't be getting great implied odds during the early stages because of the low blinds, and opponents are usually unwilling to play loose without a strong hand.
Making Calls just for Information
Players are constantly rotating in and out of tables during multi-table tournaments. And each time this happens, you have a new person to profile and learn about before making any bold moves. That being the case, it's a waste of chips to bet or call merely for information in MTT's. Instead, you should play a hand the way you think it should be played, then let information come as a result of that. Don't throw out chips when you have a marginal hand just to see what an opponent is playing; you give just as much information away by doing this.
