Tournament Starting Hands: Adjusting for Format

## Tournament Starting Hand Adjustments Tournament starting hands differ from cash game ranges because of stack depth changes throughout the event. Deep-stacked early stages allow wider ranges. Shorter-stacked middle and late stages require tighter ranges with more shoving and less postflop play. In the early stage with 100+ big blinds, open similarly to deep-stack cash games with slightly more caution in multiway pots. In the middle stage with 30-60 big blinds, tighten early position ranges but maintain aggression from late position. In the late stage with fewer than 25 big blinds, consult push-fold charts. Your starting hand decisions become binary: shove or fold. Hand playability matters less than raw equity because you will rarely see a flop. ## Tournament Rakeback Reminder Tournament buy-in fees count toward your rakeback tier at most rooms. When evaluating tournaments, factor in the effective discount from your rakeback percentage. A $10+$1 tournament at 40% rakeback effectively costs $10.60 after rakeback — a meaningful savings over thousands of entries.