How to run a sequential code in a cluster workstation?

Hi, I have the opportunity to work with a cluster of computers in order to analyze the speed up, if any, of my parallelizable code. When I connect to the master node of that cluster, I call matlabpool open n, with n>1, to work with n nodes of the cluster in parallel. I want to compare the simulation time obtained with n nodes respect that obtained with the sequential version of my code. Actually, for the sequential version I call (always through the master node) matlabpool open 1, but is it right? I mean, for the sequential code can I work directly with the master node without calling matlabpool open 1?