I agree here, even if you build up a double chip lead over second place in round 2, by round 4-5 it won't mean much. Now if you slowly build your stack slowly, you will have a much better chance at making it to round 4-5 without as much risk.

Why view a tournament as a closed event? Hmm... Because it is? If you place in ever tourney you play, you will make money and eventually palce big enough for a nice payout. If you risk it all mid tourney, you will have one big win and a ton of losses.

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“There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about.” - John von Neumann

What you guys are failing to see is that your stack is only relative to other stacks.

When you double or triple up early you can then use your chip lead to continue to increase your lead.

When you wait til level 6 to start playing and double up you will be lucky to be an average stack.

1 thing I always do is make sure I know where i am relative to the average, this way i know if a double up will put me above average/average/or still below.

This will help you determine how your strategy should change throughout the tournament. Again I'm not advocating crazy play but if you get AK or JJ early on i would be willing to commit some chips to these hands.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the shit players are eliminated early on, you should be one of the people doing the eliminating.

It is no more a closed event than any session at the table is a closed event.

Those that say building a good stack early doesn't help...... Well, if you know how to play it it does. If you have more chips than your opponents, you can keep playing your game without fear of busting out.

I don't understand how just staying at par, and only then having to take chances later that could bust you is superior.

I know most pro's do not play the way TJ Cloutier rights. Daniel Negreanu is a good example, he takes chances early in the game, plays a lot of pots and makes a lot of raises and steals. This doesn't mean going all-in a lot, it means actively taking a lot of small pots without a showdown.

In-fact, in Dan Harrington's book, he advises playing good solid pot odds poker. He says in several places that you are under a time limit to collect chips in tournaments, and you can't afford to mis opportunities.

My AT hand probably wasn't a good example, because I really thought the guy would fold and was not as strong as he was.

Not even TJ plays the way that he writes. The ultra-tight strategy that he proposes doesnt work without his reading and memory skills.

You have to take some chances of course, you limp with drawing hands and you raise with your AK and maybe JJ, but if you are called on the flop you slow down.

And no a big stack early with an average stack early doesnt have many differences, it just allows you to take some more chances. You cant bully someone that has 100 bb's and you cant bully the maniacs.

I agree with both points of view here for differing reasons.

Let's take the cautious approach. The one big advantage is that your mind is geared to play 'proper' poker not 'gambling' poker. The one big disadvantage is that you can 'waste' several hours getting nowhere.

The other more 'optimistic' approach taken by Beavis is rightly flawed when the size of the blinds and competitors chip piles become larger and so your pile becomes 'average'. However, that's not so critical as being aware of what you're doing.

Personally I play like this. I start with 1500 (no rebuys) . I will 'gamble' 500 of these chips at the lowest level of blinds to try and get well above average, then pressurise the small piles. I 'knowingly' gamble - which is a mind set that is not my normal game so I don't go off the rails. If it works, then I play like Beavis - if it doesn't I revert to playing cautious and wait for the initial adrenilin to disperse.

At worst and at best I've created a 'table image' that could work for me when I change gears. However, with 500 or so people playing this is less of an edge as I will be switching tables every ten minutes or so.

At the end of the day you need luck to be with you, just try and create situations where you avoid confrontations for all of your chips (until you have to or want to).

Finally, unless you are prepared for (and want to be patient for) a 3 hour session - don't bother playing. Even though I am 'gambling' my 500 chips early on, I am there for the long haul. It's the mind set you see that the most important factor.

Steve :good:

Hi Steve (Oh god, that's like what 3-4 steve's now? Heh),

Nice post. I agree pretty much with what you have to say, although I think 500 may be just a bit too much for my tastes.. maybe 300-400 if I was doing your style. Nevertheless, it works because early on the blinds are so small. The main downside IMHO is that since early on there are so many poor players you have a good chance of getting a bad beat (top 2 pair vs flush draw for example). Anyhow don't respond to this because I accept/agree with your response.

I think both styles mentioned in this thread can work, but are simply that: different styles.

Welcome to the site - if all of your posts are like this, VeNSe and Naruto may have some post competition here

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KiD[ReD]
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WOOT WOOT STEPHEN'S HERE TO ARGUE WITH ME!!!! That Conservative ass!

Welcome to PokerForums ST!

About time too!

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Marm he was just waiting for a tournament question!

this is actually his 2nd post. (Steve Terry's).