Collecting chips early in a tourney

[pat1971]

I play in as many tournaments as possible like many of you.
The one thing that plagues my game is that early in the tournament I never seem to collect any chips.
What happens is I seem to get really tight then I win a good size pot and then I get comfortable which is usually around the 3rd level.
Then after this I get myself on a roll and make lots of noise.
I play in this one game every month that has to have a license from the state. (Maine)
I have played three times and I already have a reputation as someone not to play against. Well this is fine but I start to slow in my opinion and feel I run into trouble too early before I get going.
Do any of you have any ideas on how to jumpstsrt myself earlier?

[zinn0]

Use your reputation and bully early.

[Sentinel]

So you kick in at the 3rd level, get comfortable, go on a roll, make lots of noise and are known as a guy not to tangle with.

What's the problem here?


Conversely, why are you so pre occupied in collecting chips at the early stages when no one has ever won a tournament in the first hour, let alone the first round?

Why be so concerned with 5 pots of 10/20 blinds when just one pot of 50/100 does the same for less risk?

Why be so concerned about collecting a couple of hundred chips at low stages when at the business end the blinds will be in their thousands?

Why be so concerned at gathering a smattering of chips in the early stages when this is the period when opponents are tripping over themselves to get knocked out?

And if none of this makes any difference at all then consider the fact that in my last 2 MTTs, I had less than 13bb at the 75/150 stage, yet was chip leader thereafter, winning one and placing 11th in the other. Most of my headway is made by watching the lemmings chuck themselves over the cliffs in the opening rounds (eliminating a large portion of the field), slowly accumulating chips and then doubling up when the blinds become substantial.

Doubling up from 1500 to 3000 in the opening level when hundreds are in play never stands me in as good stead as doubling up 20,000 to 40,000 when just half the starting field is left.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

Just go balls out. lol donkaments.

The fact of the matter is, you need a stack to play effectively, and you need to get cards at the right time to succeed in a tournament well. So, you need to do one of two things:

1. Play tight, hope for cards, and play as well as you can at crucial inflection points. Players like Dan Harrington, Barry Greenstein, and Erik Seidel are good examples of this style.

OR,

2. Play very loosely right from the go, or when the antes kick in, and bully people out of as many small pots as possible, and hope to use your image to get a lot of chips when/if you really get a hand. This style is more prone to variance and will probably result in a lot of level 5 and 6 bustouts, but can really have dividends if you get a hot streak. Phil Ivey, David Pham, and Joe Sebok are good examples of this style.

Remember that you can't win the tournament in the first couple levels. But you can set yourself up for later, or you can lose it. At the end of the day, a good player will probably go deep with an excellent run of cards, cash with above average cards, possibly squeak by with average cards, and probably bust with poor cards. Sadly, the cards you receive are the biggest predictor of your success in any given tournament.

[mortaleclipse]

Just go balls out. lol donkaments.

The fact of the matter is, you need a stack to play effectively, and you need to get cards at the right time to succeed in a tournament well. So, you need to do one of two things:

1. Play tight, hope for cards, and play as well as you can at crucial inflection points. Players like Dan Harrington, Barry Greenstein, and Erik Seidel are good examples of this style.

OR,

2. Play very loosely right from the go, or when the antes kick in, and bully people out of as many small pots as possible, and hope to use your image to get a lot of chips when/if you really get a hand. This style is more prone to variance and will probably result in a lot of level 5 and 6 bustouts, but can really have dividends if you get a hot streak. Phil Ivey, David Pham, and Joe Sebok are good examples of this style.

Remember that you can't win the tournament in the first couple levels. But you can set yourself up for later, or you can lose it. At the end of the day, a good player will probably go deep with an excellent run of cards, cash with above average cards, possibly squeak by with average cards, and probably bust with poor cards. Sadly, the cards you receive are the biggest predictor of your success in any given tournament.

With DC post i would IMO agree with it. I think later in tournaments cards can play a less in what the outcome comes to. Of course playing "stack size" is huge but the deeper you get 90% of people seam not wanting to bust becomes a bigger factor. In a recent tournament i played online was the 3$ rebuy about 2 weeks ago and let me give a quick example.
Im sitting at 8th place with about 120 people left to go. Ok so we of course are very deep in the massive donkament field and we are completely card dead. I dont think i saw a hand better then A3o for about 50 minutes and at this stage blinds can start to eat at you even with the stack I had. I had 600k but when got to only 50 people left i had got to 950k , wait werent we card dead?

One hand i was pretty proud of cause i followed what i thought was correct and got the right results. I got 625k with blinds at 10k/20k in the SB with 2 5 . Folds around to the button who flat calls and he has around 450k and I call to complete and BB checks. I first had to ask myself why would the button flat call this deep in a tournament without raising seamed either extremely weak or very strong but i leaned more towards the weak side cause if he had something no way would he want us to outflop him for free.

Flop comes 3 6 6 , pretty good flop for my hand and checked to see what my action was cause a check raise i think was going to happen here. BB checks and the button fires 80k into the roughly 80k pot, yes it was standard and i called to see if BB had that 6 cause if so he would deff check raise us both scared of clubs, nope he folds. Turn comes a 2 which now i got a pair along with my big draw. Obviously I got two choices bet or check and I decided to check here because it dawned on me if i bet he was probably going to fold. Villian is more then likely betting light and did not want a call and i was going to let him make another bluff which I could consume more chips from him rather then betting and seeing him fold. So thats exactly what i did was let him bet 150k and I check raised all in he insta folded. Point is I had no real hand but still seamed to accumilate a ton of chips in what I thought was a correct play.