Popping your high stakes tournament cherry

[hgoodman]

So I just won a ticket into the $1,000+0 PokerRoom tourney on New Year's Day which is by far the biggest stakes tournament I've ever been in (I think the highest was like $100+10). Any advice for someone stepping up the quality of opponents I'd presume? Less slowplaying?

[jslag]

I'm in this as well. I don't think the quality of play will be that different from $100-$200 level MTTs. In fact, I lost two qualifiers to this tournament on bad beats to some pretty horrible players.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
So I just won a ticket into the $1,000+0 PokerRoom tourney on New Year's Day which is by far the biggest stakes tournament I've ever been in (I think the highest was like $100+10). Any advice for someone stepping up the quality of opponents I'd presume? Less slowplaying?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would actually think more slowplaying. Against bad players who will call big bets with second pair or top pair/no kicker, you don't need to slowplay, just bet your good hands, and check-fold the bad ones.

Against better/trikier/more tight-aggressive players, you may want to give them more opportunities to bluff at you when you have a hand (dependent on the player of course, but you'll find many more players who will bet much worse hands than they will call bets with).

Out of curiosity, why would you think you would want to slow play less? Do you find that the biggest mistake you see at lower stakes is people bluffing off their chips?

[nate1729]

Something similar happened to me; I won a seat in a Party Step 5, never having played a SNG bigger than $50. Poker is poker; watch your opponents and think clearly, and good things will happen. (Maybe I'm just optimistic because I cashed.) The one thing I'd say is that you're likely to run into more aggression than you're used to; be prudent but don't be afraid to find a hand and run with it. (On the other hand, maybe these will all be lower-stakes qualifiers, so the play will be similar to what you're used to?) Don't be too scared, have fun, and good luck.

[B Mando]

Just drink about 4-6 beers before the big game.