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How to get chips early in a tournament???

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ThinkerJE:
I have noticed during my Vegas trip that I am constantly getting short stacked and under pressure when the blinds go up or antes kick in.  Therefore I need to understand how to go about accumulating chips early in a tournament.  Play more hands???  Take more risks???   Bluff more???  It is an area of my game that I must improve.  All the big winners of tournaments seem to be able to get chips early, think about players like De Wolfe, Thew & Vaswani.  I realise there is no simple answer, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers

James.

Swinebag:
in PP mag one guy reccommends the following (correct me if I"m wrong)

forget playing marginal hands early position (Aj, Kq, Aq)

call any raise (but not a reraise) in late position with any 2 (I assume with a view to taking the pot on later streets)

I tried it and busted out early, but then again so do Vaswani and De Wolfe regularly, it just doesn"t get reported as much. Those players do tend to either bust early or go deep.

Great Vegas updates btw

Paulie_D:

--- Quote from: Swinebag22 on June 27, 2007, 12:48:59 PM ---
...call any raise (but not a reraise) in late position with any 2 (I assume with a view to taking the pot on later streets)
--- End quote ---


Also known as a Farha or a Hansen.

Chipping up early is nice but to do it you have to put chips at risk. That means either:

Playing agressively (because others don"t want to bust out early either) but you might run into a slow-played monster...be aware.

Limping (or calling a raise) with marginal cards A-Face, Suited Connectors etc and hoping to get paid when (if) you hit.

Either way, your chips will be flowing onto the table with no guarantee they"ll come back.

BTW..Farha & Hansen bust out a lot too. Sammy makes his cash playing Blackjack...do you think he knows something we don"t?

kinboshi:
As has been pointed out, if you want to adopt a strategy that gives you a chance of accumulating a lot of chips early, then you have to be prepared for the risk of losing lots of chips early too.

If you gamble early, you can then build up a large stack with which you can bully with - and one thing you don"t want a loose aggressive player at your table to have is a big stack.

It"s also worth remembering that a big stack early on puts you in a good position, it doesn"t guarantee you anything.  You need to have gears and know when to slow down a bit too.  Winning chips later on in a tourney is far more important than winning chips early.  Not losing chips early is very important (but of course you don"t just want to sit there in your shell waiting for a monster that never comes).

If you"re looking to try and build a big stack early you want to take risks - but calculated ones.  First of all, you want to get in cheap and you don"t want to be laying down hands pre-flop to a re-raiser - so best to avoid those situations and follow the advice Swinebag posted to avoid marginal hands in early position.  Suited connectors can be beautiful if you hit the board hard.  Also you could look to make some very trappy plays with big hands (but also be aware you can get yourself into trouble - risk/reward again).

Then there"s the "Scandie" way.  Brutally aggressive from any position.  Leading out with all sorts of hands, and continuation betting on the flop (which of course will miss your opponent most of the time).  This strategy his uber-risky, but can be a hugely successful way of accumulating a large stack early. 

(that"s just my thoughts - I"d appreciate to be corrected where I"m talking nonsense)

jacklevel06:
I find getting chips early quite easy,small raise"s into an un-raised pot usually works followed by a continuation bet aginst maybe 1 or 2 callers.The over bet tends to work a lot as well against limpers.My problem is once i"ve got these chips i seem to get stuck in hyper aggresive mode for as long as i last in the tournament.I dont seem to know when to slow down.

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