When to avoid late registration

There are times when you should show up on time in poker tournaments and embrace the deep stack play.

I may be poker's biggest advocate of late registration, but there are times when you want to show up from the very start of a tournament.

That would be any time you feel you have a significant skill edge with deep stacks. This will be bucket list-type events and tourneys with lots of satellite qualifiers.

Players tend to be very relaxed with deep stacks and will splash around a lot in the early levels. As Greg Raymer once said, you want to play with the fish when they still have chips. The weaker players are often weeded out by the end of late registration.

How to adjust to deep stack play

If you are a serious player who usually registers late for tournaments, one of the biggest errors I see is not adjusting from 40bb ranges to 100bb ranges.

You want to play more hands that can make the nuts like suited Aces, rather than dominated hands like KJo.

You also want to size up with your 3-bets to lower the stack-to-pot ratio, especially because in most soft live games, the players overcall preflop.

Finally, brush up on the basics of multi-way strategy, because you will often see four or five players see the flop.

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