Making it to semi-bubble and busting out, suggestions?

[72allin]

I've been reading the forums here for about a month but this is my first actual post so go easy on me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I started out online about a year ago, playing the daily freerolls at Pacific Poker for fun. I managed to win $5 through one of these and with a little luck and a lot of poker books I've managed to turn that $5 into $1100. I used to play $1/$2 limit hold'em but have recently switched to playing $10+1 SNG's, which I'm having great success with. Sometimes when I'm looking for a change I play the lower buy-in multitable tournaments (5 or 10 bucks).

I use the same strategy throughout the tournament that I use in the early stages of a SNG. i.e. very tight, but very aggressive play, and not being afraid to go all in with a big pocket pair or AK. Once the blinds reach $100 or so I start applying the gap concept to steal blinds and such.

Regardless, I seem to win one or two big pots, then get blinded away and bust out 10 or 20 people before the money. I have gotten very close to cashing but have yet to do so.

I thought I would post here to see what suggestions I might receive. Should I gamble a bit more early in the tournament to accumulate chips, then tighten up and survive the bigger blinds? It seems like cashing in MTT's is based more on catching a good run of cards early than any actual skill (unlike SNGs). Any comments would be appreciated.

[BoneCollector]

Recent member myself, although been playing SNG's for a couple years now.

For SNG's:
Anyways, playing more hands when the blinds are small is usually bad. other players will usually call significant raises when the blinds are samll relative to stack size with any reasonable (and unreasonable) holding. For this reason the best strategy is to play very tight in early stages. You allow the other loose players to knock each other out, minimize difficult decisions that you have to make post flop, and establish a tight image that will help with steal attemps as the blinds increase to a more significant level.

For MTT's:
Gambling early may help you accumulate chips faster, but its more likely going to get you knocked out faster.

Another thing to consider is that when it gets close to the money in MTT's, the short stacks are going to be playing all in poker, and none of the mid to large stacks are going to want to get involved in pots without great holdings (and for the big stacks great pot odds). Use the time when the money approaches to make steals against the average stacks, and avoid the stacks who are below average unless you hold a monster.