I play cash games and Bodog and Tourneys at Party Poker. Ive recently been playing the $10 and $20 buy in at Party Poker on the 20k Guarenteed Tournament. My question is at these cheap buy-ins are you always faced with poor play and players being rewarded for it. Example, 2,500 Entries into a $10 buy in tourney (1st place around $5,000) and we were down to around 300 left (In the money at 220th place). I got dealt Pocket Jacks in first position. The Blinds were 150/300, I raised to 900. Everyone folded except the Big Blind and he called. Flop came 3,7,10.... and two of them were diamonds. He raised 1000 and I went all in with my remaining 5000 trying to get him off of a diamond draw. He called with a 10,3 offsuit. Turn and river never helped me. I understand protecting your blinds but this is a bit rediculous with that hand. Anyway it seems to happen all the time in the cheap buy ins. Should i move up to the more expensive buy in say $50 or higher to find a game where there money is valued or should I just continue at the cheap ones and hope my luck changes.
Thanks

If you can't beat bad players, you won't beat good or better players.

I've played these a lot and the play is very beatable. The patience and discipline to not overplay Jacks on a consistent level are another story. QQ, TT, 77, and 33 beat you and there's much action you're getting from lesser hands.

Fact is that the larger the fields, the more conservative you wanna play before the antes kick in and regardless of this hand, you were too aggressive with your Jacks here. You didn't give a good example. You disregarded your table type/your stack:his stack. If you're gonna be this stubborn on the flop with an overpair, raise bigger PF so you can push the flop. You're OOP, so if you're gonna call for all your chips, push them in yourself.

__________________

You have to expect that in a large field that ur gonna get bad beats. At party the fields are so large in reality you have to get lucky at least once, if not twice to make fiinal table (lucky meaning beat the odds from behind).

To make money in tourneys at party you have to play many at the same(ish) buy over time. Think of it this way:

2000 players 200 get paid and first pay is pretty much even money. So if ur an average player, you have 10% of breaking even so to speak (not exactly true but reasonable for example purposes) and you have a 0.5% 1/200 of making final table (respecatble return on buy per/hr played).

So by this simplistic logic you would need to play 10 tourneys to break even and 200 to make a good return per/hr over time. Though a strong player will have better odds obviously.

The way i beat these odds to some degree is I play the satalites to the big tourneys that give u a buy in for every 16-24 players. Im an above average holdem player (I can make top 10% of field 20%+ of the time in lower end tourneys) and these sats are primarily average and i can make the tourney 1/5ish for $10-$20. Now im in a $200 buy tourney for $50-100. Now in the tourneys the field is much stronger and im probably cloer to an average player, but because ive invested less in the buy i have a finacial edge. Though to be honest tourneys are so long i prefer ring games and only do this on occasion for variety.