[flopking]

I know many experienced players here will find this post uninformative, but I'm curious to find out about your MTT experiences so that I may compare my own results and strategies.

I recently got Harrington's on Hold Em Vol1 and decided to employ some of his strategies on play (tweaked a bit) and see the results.

Prior to reading the book, I've played mostly low buy in ($5-10) tourneys. I haven't kept exact statistics of my results, but I have played in probably about 70 or so tourney's and would conservatively estimate I cash about 25% of the time. I have made 5 final tables and have two 2nd and one 3rd place finish. I figure these results are probably typical for the relative newcomer - in each of the cases I did really well, I got good cards, good flops, and didn't get drawn out on often.

Anyway, after about 10 tourney's using Harrington's conservative system at low limits I've found that his recommended betting patterns (using fractional pot-sized bets) gives me a much better idea of my opponent's holding, but also tends to decrease the size of pots that I take down. For instance, I no longer open raise to 300 with aces when the blinds are $25-50, so if I do get action, the pots tend to be smaller. Thus, I find that unless I'm running hot, my chip stack tends to be about 15-20x the BB by mid-tournament.

What normally occurs if I am medium stacked: I play super-tight in the mid-game stretch, stealing occasionally during the bubble, but usually just playing strong pre/post flop with good hands. I muck Ax suited, KQ, KJ, and small pairs OOP, trying to preseve as many of my chips for double up situations, etc. The result of this strategy is that my fate (final table or better) is normally decided by 1 or 2 coin flips. I feel this strategy, while probably profitable at low-limit MTTs, isn't really advancing my tourney game... It makes my decisions more mechanical and I often arrive late in the tourney with a minimum of chips.

Do you think it is better to be aggressive in the opening stages in attempt to build a chip stack that can last to the final table or employ the conservative route, limping along, staying a bit ahead of the blinds and hope for a card rush/luck during the endgame?