always end up shortstacked in middle of tournament

hey all,
I been playing some Stars micro buy-in tourneys recently. Starting off, I usually get my chipstack up to ~1900 from 1500, and then the cards run dry and/or I get too conservative. as the tourney goes on, i end up shortstacked with around 1200 chips(failed raises with the AQ i waited 4 orbits, flop: K97), and end up having to make a drastic move. I push stuff like 98s(two hopefully live cards) with about 8 or so BB+SB left, get called by A8, and lose. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] This place has always been helpful for me, so any ideas/comments? anything im doing wrong etc?
I have read HOH1, and TOP.

[stew77]

refer to the Wisdom on MTTs thread at the top of this forum,. you will find good advice to stop this there

any advice on specific threads?

[ansky451]

In general you probably arent gambling enough early on. Remember, the worst players get busted early on, so you should want to get in on that action. Don't fold small pairs and other speculative hands to raises in position, if it's a small % of your stack. You can afford to try to flop a big hand and bust someone who can't get off top pair. Don't be afraid to splash chips around with mediocre hands, as you can build a very big stack this way.

Having said that, remember that position is everything. I won't call an UTG raise with ATo if im UTG+1, but I might call a small CO raise from the button with 75s.

Later on you should still being willing to gamble, and people will be tightening up so you need to take advantage of that. You should pretty much stop open limping completely after the 50/100 level, as blind stealing becomes important.

Just a start, but hope it helps.