Surviving huge fields. How?

I have been playing poker for a little less than two years. I play 1 to 5 table tournaments ($1-$10)at pokerstars. I can win with some consistency. However, i don't understand how people survive the larger fields of 1000 people and up. As the tournament starts (everyone with 1500 chips) I try to find a decent hand to play but in only 20 minutes there are already players with as much as 20000 chips. Thereafter I end up being short stacked fighting for my survival while their stacks continue growing.
Perhaps this is a silly question but is there something I am missing about tournament games online? Someone always wins those big tourneys but were they just incredibly lucky or do they know something I never heard of.
Any input would be appreciated.
Thanx in advance!

[Superfluous Man]

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Perhaps this is a silly question but is there something I am missing about tournament games online? Someone always wins those big tourneys but were they just incredibly lucky or do they know something I never heard of.
Any input would be appreciated.
Thanx in advance!

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Yes, there is something you're missing about tournaments (not online, this generalizes to large B&M tournaments as well). Those who win are indeed very lucky, but they also do things to accumulate chips.

[Slow Play Ray]

Obviously, there is no one thing.

This is your first post - have you browsed this forum at all yet? A good place to start would be the sticked "Anthology of 2+2 Wisdom" at the top of this page, and go from there. Read hand analogies, post hands you have trouble with, and you will learn.

[BCl]

One of my first posts here was the about the same thing. but after a bit of research i found that those guys who jumped out to the 10,000 chip lead rarely kept it till the end.over half didnt even hit the money. the fact is they got a big rush early..they got aces on the first hand and got lucky and had 3 callers and didnt get drawn out on...with 150+ tables its bound to happen. patience and getting your rush when the blinds are more like 400/800 and up is the key to hitting the board.
as an experiment , you can wait the whole 1st hr for aces or K's and if you get them and double up you'll start the 2nd hr with an avg stack against only 55-60% of the players..even if you dont play a hand the whole 1st hr your still not in terrible shape, your backs against the wall but your not desperate by any means..patience and aggressiveness when your hand is a 60%+ fav will take you along way in these tournys...

[lotus776]

consider reading Sklansky's "why the first day chip leader never wins the WSOP. IT'll shine some light on the enormous stacks at the beginning of the Tourney.

where would i find this article?

[tdarko]

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where would i find this article?

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chapter in TPFAP

[REL18]

Never do people have 20k in 20 minutes im in tourney right now after 1 hour largest stack is 15k

[CD56]

early on your stack size relative to the blinds is much mroe important than your stack size relative to others in the tourney

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early on your stack size relative to the blinds is much mroe important than your stack size relative to others in the tourney

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Yea most definately. As the blinds get higher you can go make huge leaps in the chip standing within just a few hands and vice versa for the chip leaders. I pay no attention to this early on. Only gets interested in it when I am ITM.

The thing you need to know is your stack relative to the blinds and your table. Everything else is irrelevant.