Am I doing something wrong????

[phluffhead]

For the past 8 months or so I have been playing alot of holdem. And in the past 4 months Ive been playing online at Paradise poker alot. I am big into the tournies now, I usually play $5 or $10 buy in NL. These tournies usually have 600-1000 players and pay up to 60-90th place. I always make it through the first 2 hours of the tourny very well (placed in the top 70). But I have never placed in the money! If I start out with 1500 chips I seem to never get my stack past 15,000. I consider myself a pretty established poker player, I can weigh out the odds and usually do so correctly. Could it be that I am playing in a tournament with to many players or that Im just still to inexperienced? Any tips on playing better in tournaments? Thanks.

Tom.

[saper88aa]

Playing in a tourney isnt like regular play.You really have to wait out good hands for the first hour.Then play agressive.THis is whats worked for me... in online tourneys anyway.

[jwrussell]

Here's another thought about these tournaments. The blinds are raised every 10 minutes (at least on Paradise). Now I haven't played in any real brick and mortar tourney's but I'm guessing that in a real tournament, say the WSOP, that the blinds don't raise anywhere near that quickly. This is to keep the time it takes to play the tourney down. That way people can play more of them and more tourneys played means more money for the poker site.

It seems to me that this tends to make the outcome of the tournament based more on luck than skill in some cases. Obviously you have to have some skill to make it to a certain level, but once those blinds get up high enough, people are usually taking a little more time to decide causing the blinds to go up even faster (or so it seems). This really shows itself in those freerolls Paradise has with those obscene numbers of people in them (3500) . In those tournaments you end up with so many people with insane chip leads right off the bat from people with "all-in-itus" that it becomes almost impossible to play the way you want to.

Just my take on it.

[JimTheBullet]

I'm guessing that in a real tournament, say the WSOP, that the blinds don't raise anywhere near that quickly. This is to keep the time it takes to play the tourney down. That way people can play more of them and more tourneys played means more money for the poker site.

What you say is correct - the blinds go up slower, in terms of time elapsed, in a real as opposed to online tournament. Your reasoning is wrong though. I play real tournaments quite a lot, home games and casino, and the blinds typically increment every half hour. In an online tournament it is typically 10 - 12 minutes which is about a third of the time. But, since online play is so much quicker, you play about the same number of hands in each level in a real tournament as you do in an online one.

In the last home tournament I played in we had 9 players at the table and we played 8 - 10 hands in each level for the first 3 levels (I gave up counting after that). This is about what you get through in a multi table tournament and slightly less than in the average sit and go. This is based on my experience at Paradise Poker in which sit and go tourneys have 10 hands per level irrespective of time.