[betgo]

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I knew I was a better player than 90% of the field.

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I'm curious how you "knew" that - when you weren't winning?

Tournament poker is poker and tournament. Fearlessly gambling it up can be a very effective tournament strategy. Building a big stack early on with a couple of successful gambles and then having the courage to push it against "better" players is probably a winning strategy for players of lesser experience and little post-flop ability.

If what makes you "better" in your own mind is your knowledge of "appropriate starting hands" and odds you have basically reduced yourself to a pre-flop player (hey, no prejudice, I'm one of them) without much advantage over the more inexperienced participants early on. As opposed to late in the tournament, where you definitively will have the upper hand. Proper adjustment for early play: keep it small. Just call with your big Aces and suited connectors, and let go of your cards if the going gets heated on the flop.

If your perceived skill-advantage is your reading and post-flop abilities, then - again - you should be raising very little pre-flop - at least early on. Instead you should be calling raises and outplaying the opposition after the flop.

But what am I rambling about, you obviously adjusted your strategy to benefit what you're good at.[ QUOTE ]
I basically let them eliminate themselves. Its not my job to do so.

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Good luck!

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

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It depends on your style, but I think that not raising with AK or something at a bunch of limpers from CO or button is a really bad play. My strengths are more strategic, so I am not looking to outplay people limping with junk postflop. Generally, I think it is good to raise with strong hands and try to outplay postflop in a bigger pot. Sure sometimes you wind up in big coin toss situations, but I don't think it is worth trying to avoid that.

I do agree that OP's viewpoint that he is better than 90% of the players may not be correct. He probably has more book knowledge. There is also a lot of luck in these, so I wouldn't judge skill level by short term results.