Your best tournament stratagy

[freeringo]

I have had years of success playing small tournaments.
My stratagy for success is quite simple.
I break it down into 3 groups (hours)
Do not try to win the tournament in the first hour.
Get into as many cheap hands as you can.
Do not over play big hands early, it's not worth the risk.
Primary goal is to double up once in the 1st hour.

By sticking to this dicipline I make it through the first hour 90 % of time.

In the second hour play super super tight, playing only Top 5 hands and try
to protect blinds when possible. I am folding KQ and A 10.
The goal is to double up once more.
By this time we should be real close to being in the money.
In the 3rd hour, I focus on placing in the money, if I haven't already.
Once in the money I start to loosen up and be aggressive.
Aggressive play is the only way you are going to survive in the 3rd hour.
What ever happens now is on you, I got you to the money.

[freeringo]

Lastnight I followed my own rules and placed 4th out of 48 players.
The first hour I went from 3000 chips to 14000.
The second hour Very tight and on the last hand before the break
and 1st hand on the final table with only 7 players paid, I got AA with 7000 chips left. Allin and a bigstack called with 99, I now had 18000.
I didn't make any moves till I was in the money and then got up to 35000
chips and no cards for the longest time.
With the blinds being so big, I had to be patient.
It paid off because the big stacks did all the work.

[eejit101]

I 100%......... do not know if i agree or not.

The way to win and final table MTTs consistantly is to obtain a bigger stack early. This is called "chipping up".

Ringo here has many valid points, but is formenting his case around tourneys with fields of 30-100 players.

So basically i can advise the following -

1 - If your playing in a small field tourney or private game, use ringos advice all day long if you wish.
2 - Anything bigger, you should be losing early in a tournament alot more often. Just scraping into the money does you no good. If you do that 50% of the time and just cash in a low place, you will LOSE money in the long term. You need to get agressive early on to get a bigger stack thatll get you into the money (unless you lose a lot of hands quickly) and that gives you the platform to move forward and abuse bubbe situations, dominate tables, agressively blind down ower stacks e.t.c

[freeringo]

I 100%......... do not know if i agree or not.

The way to win and final table MTTs consistantly is to obtain a bigger stack early. This is called "chipping up".

Ringo here has many valid points, but is formenting his case around tourneys with fields of 30-100 players.

So basically i can advise the following -

1 - If your playing in a small field tourney or private game, use ringos advice all day long if you wish.
2 - Anything bigger, you should be losing early in a tournament alot more often. Just scraping into the money does you no good. If you do that 50% of the time and just cash in a low place, you will LOSE money in the long term. You need to get agressive early on to get a bigger stack thatll get you into the money (unless you lose a lot of hands quickly) and that gives you the platform to move forward and abuse bubbe situations, dominate tables, agressively blind down ower stacks e.t.c

Great advise Eejit for bigger games.
I forgot to mention that I rarely play in games with more than 100 players.
That's how I manage to keep a steadily increasing bank roll. Less hours and more rewards in small private games with added money.
My Bad

[eejit101]

You should seriously start playing some bigger games....

I mean i know you can do it. If you can finish 4th in an $11 tourney of 5x the size, your nearly in for a 4 figure win...

[freeringo]

You should seriously start playing some bigger games....

I mean i know you can do it. If you can finish 4th in an $11 tourney of 5x the size, your nearly in for a 4 figure win...

But I am soooooooo CHEAP.
But I'm not easy.

I am open to expand my horizons abit.
Just point the way.
I got $135 free money on PDC I can risk.
I do have the time

[eejit101]

Not PDC ffs....

Merge sucks for big games.

Go to FT/PS/Cake.

Play some large field games.

See how you do.

Stars if possible. For a buck there u can win $4k on a sunday! Id rather eat cabbage than play that though. For $20 on a sunday you can win $45,000 though... thats better

[micron1]

I never bluff intill the blinds go up and only then I now im going to lose the hand. I would bet with nothing before i would call with an ok hand because I know where im at in the hand. I only play about ten percent of my hands. then I change gears all the time to keep people thinking about what i have. I like to show all of my bluffs to get people to call me but will not bluff more then two or three times per table my carbon user name is railbirdking good luck on trying to find out what gear im on have a good day