Tournament Strategy Question. . . .

[tdomeski]

Say you are playing a 1000 person tourney. Top 100 get money. Is it better to play to win, or play not to lose? And would your answer be the same for any tournament you played, regardless of the size.

[Tobes]

I usually play not to lose until about 3/4 of the field are out. Then I play to win. Of course, you should always play "to win" but in order to do this sometimes you have to play not to lose. If that made any sense...

[fnurt]

In most payout structures, the money is at the final table, and especially the top 3. So you should be playing with that in mind, not trying to squeak into the money by playing overly conservative.

You will find many "survival is everything" types on this forum, but that way of thinking has largely been debunked. You have to look for favorable situations and go for it.

[swimfan]

saw you in that tourney. just busted out 14th...defended my BB with KTs against SB's K4s. riverstars came through /images/graemlins/ooo.gif ah well, was riding the SS from 100th place on in...

anyway, best i can say is play each situation separately, i don't worry about all the other tables, just my own.

[Eder]

Survival mode is dangerous even in sats...
I tried this last night late in sat...41 entries to main event, I was sitting in 25th spot and tightened up with 100 players remaining...
Folded a few spots early that I would normally play(KQs,A 10s) then went card dead for an hour and bubbled...
I hope thats last time I play that way, survival mode is more like funeral mode I think..

[RacersEdge]

[ QUOTE ]
You will find many "survival is everything" types on this forum, but that way of thinking has largely been debunked. You have to look for favorable situations and go for it.



[/ QUOTE ]

Being new to tournys, I am starting to believe this statement as well. Are they any numbers to support this idea? For example, I was wondering how often on average the eventual winner of a tourney doubles up by going all in? It seems to me like there is a kind of "tipping point" in a lot of tournies where a big win - even early - strongly correlates with final standings. I'm sure there must be some analysis done in this area.

[CitricAcid13]

If you're stuck at an average table... your chipstack is as important as your play. If you get up early and build your stack, you can afford to play more hands (even without paying off lower stacks), and push people out of pots. But, on the contrary, winning the big pots are still infinitely more important than pushing people around out of small pots.

[JARID]

Play to win, because sitting there for four hours to just to get your money back and two extra nickels sucks.

That doesn't mean you abondon good tournament strategy though.

-Jarid

[RFJ]

Survive To Win. Yes sometimes cards don't come your way so u can't play, but when u get cards you need to play em for maximum chips. The theory of play to win doesn't add up for me. I think when i play that way there is no guarantee i will still have the lead even if i were to take the lead early on. have u ever wondered what the blinds were worth near the money when blinds are 2000 or more. Say you can only cover the big blind but you get to a rush of cards. Your able to double up to 5000 then to 10000 plus considering the big blind and if someone were to call your all in. Then the third time again you doubled up. By the third time your a contender for chip lead. By the fourth you'll probably definitly be chip leader if not by the 5th. This is considering that you won 5 times that you entered the pot in an all in. I've seen it happen many times. One table I was at the smallest stack looked like he was going out on the next hand. He was able to double up on the blinds. Then he went all in AA. won. Then he went all in KK. won. Then he folded the next hand. Then he went all in again with AA. This time when he went all in people didn't believe him so instead of one caller he had 2. Luckily no bad beat won. He was chip leader. I mean sometimes it takes a little luck of cards in the end of the tourney to become a loser to an overwhelming favorite. At the end of the tourney the 2000 chips are much more valuable than in the beginning of the tourney where you may only get a 100 in blinds in return for you pushing all in with your 2000 in chips.

[fnurt]

[ QUOTE ]
Survive To Win. Yes sometimes cards don't come your way so u can't play, but when u get cards you need to play em for maximum chips. The theory of play to win doesn't add up for me. I think when i play that way there is no guarantee i will still have the lead even if i were to take the lead early on. have u ever wondered what the blinds were worth near the money when blinds are 2000 or more. Say you can only cover the big blind but you get to a rush of cards. Your able to double up to 5000 then to 10000 plus considering the big blind and if someone were to call your all in. Then the third time again you doubled up. By the third time your a contender for chip lead. By the fourth you'll probably definitly be chip leader if not by the 5th. This is considering that you won 5 times that you entered the pot in an all in. I've seen it happen many times. One table I was at the smallest stack looked like he was going out on the next hand. He was able to double up on the blinds. Then he went all in AA. won. Then he went all in KK. won. Then he folded the next hand. Then he went all in again with AA. This time when he went all in people didn't believe him so instead of one caller he had 2. Luckily no bad beat won. He was chip leader. I mean sometimes it takes a little luck of cards in the end of the tourney to become a loser to an overwhelming favorite. At the end of the tourney the 2000 chips are much more valuable than in the beginning of the tourney where you may only get a 100 in blinds in return for you pushing all in with your 2000 in chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've seen that kind of thing too. I've also seen thousands of people get down to their last few chips... and lose. Now, you can play survival and hope to be that 1 in 1000 who gets lucky at the end, or you can try to make the percentage plays throughout the tournament and have a better chance of not being in a desperate situation.

This is a game of odds. If you want to favor superstition over mathematics then the casino offers many other games that might suit you better.

[jwvdcw]

I play to make the money first. Then when I'm in the money, I play to make the big money(usually final table, but sometimes in bigger tourneys its earlier). Then when I'm in the big money, I play to move up one spot at a time.

Winning is really overrated. Plenty of people can make a living off of getting high non-first finishes regularly in tourneys imo.

[RFJ]

Of coure i'm not saying survival is the only thing.. If your have good hands then your going to play them strong. You can't worry about bad beats and such. i'm just saying i'm not into those people where everyone 3 people or more have pushed all in and you still go all in with a pair of 3's hoping to get lucky when everyone has you covered. That to me is just stupid. When i say survivial i mean i'm not going to play with inferior cards just to get lucky once in a long while. You of course need a stack to get to the final table, but when the cards just don't come early on what are you going to do push all in with some garbage? If your on a tight table you might get lucky once and steal the blinds, but if you on a loose table or someone gets a great hand your dead either way. Why not get into the money first and then take it from there. There is a reason why the chip leader within 30 minutes of the game is never the chipleader near the end. Many of the chip leaders early on in the tournament are really loose player or they are skilled, but had an awesome stroke of luck. You cannot get a 4x lead over the whole table without it. They either gave someone a bad beat to take the lead or too many loose players didn't believe he had the hand so just gave him the chips. Either way when the tournment comes near the end where there are fewer weak players and more quality players it's going to be more difficult to get lucky playing with garbage.

[RFJ]

If you want to talk about mathmatics let's talk about math.. Ok yes chip stack 4000 to 1000 that's 4x the lead which is a good thing. But let's just check how u get there. In order get a lead like that you need to first analyze the percentage per hand. AA vs KK or AK.. Do the math. AA vs any 2 cards with 2 people or 3 or more. Math doesn't start with stack vs stack. It starts with hand vs hand first in this game. If your lucky enough your hand would be the best hand to give you the desired stack