[Copenhaver]

I've been playing at PokerStars for a while now, and I can say that I've been through the same thing you have. I used to be a tight player like that, too, and I'd still be disturbed by the fact that sometimes I'd play less than 30% of the hands in a tournament.

I think that the reason you may never get a big stack early is because you don't take chances. I hated getting down to the last 4 or 5 guys and be out-stacked by 2 grand. So I decided that if I was going to seriously contend for a victory and not just a place, I needed to open up my game somewhere. And sometimes early in the tournament is the place to do it.

And the rule goes, if you play more hands early, even if you don't have the best hand, you're going to get more action later in the tournament when you do have the nuts.

It's a big jump to make, but once you see that you can get others to fold to you without showing down, or if you can win pots with second pair or whatever, it opens a whole new door.

The conventional wisdom is to play tight early on, but if the action is hot, then you need to get in there. Start mixing in middle suited connectors, like 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], or 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 10 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. It's very refreshing, invigorating, and exciting. Not to mention, when those hands hit, you can cripple multiple players often. Sure, you will open yourself up to some potentially big losses, but if you shift gears (loose to tight), you will start throwing your opponents off, and they won't want to mess with you late in the tournament, which means that you might be able to pick up some nice blinds propel yourself into a heads-up match with ease.