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Building Huge Chip stacks

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Philippos13:
I ve playing a lot of MTT lately (in the range of 400-800 people)
and while im playing solid poker i never seem to get far...Best result was 50th but usually im out around places 100-200.
As i said i play solid poker and by that i do not mean i play ABC text book poker...i play a fair amount of hands 25-30% , i raise and reraise when i think i can steal the pot even i might not have the best hand , and i pull off the occasional blauf...im not too loose and i certainly do not donk chips away...

Where is the problem? While i steadily build my chipstack , i then take a look at the lobby only to see 50 people with enormous chipstacks. e.g this means in a tourny with starting stacks of 3000 some will have around 40000 while i having played good poker and probably losing just a couple of pots ill be around 9000

Sooner or later i find myself not able to compete with them and the growing blinds...



So here is the question:
1) What do i do wrong? Why i can never build such a stack?
2) How do they do it?
3) Is it by chance i.e more than their fair share of luck?



Anyone thoughts or any advice on how could i improve my game?
Thank you all

asarge:
its because your not very good philip. maybe you should try your hand at another game ;D ;D ;D
only joking pal. i know exactly what you mean, and i have the same problem and would be interested in what advise people can give here as well

lazaroonie:
its like investing money - its all dependant on your attitude to risk. Those willing to risk more will gain more, or lose more.

To get a huge chipstack in a tourney, (we are talking before the end stages here), you must be willing to put all your chips at risk, very often at no better than 50/50 odds. This means you are also at risk of going out.

Persoanlly the big stacks dont bother me - my own position relative to the average chip stack, and the blind levels is what interests me.

Tournament poker is about survival. You dont get any prizes for being the chipleader at halfway. Only at the end...

kinboshi:
Great post Laz.  Was about to say the same. 

I"ve been chip-leader half-way through a tournament with more than double the next player, and haven"t made the final table.

Of course, getting a large stack early can help - but as Laz said, it"s about having the chips at the end.  I focus on the size of my stack in relation to the blinds, with a small eye on the average chip stack (but this is usually a far smaller consideration). 

If you"re getting to the mid-late stages and you only have 5xBB, then yes you are putting your tournament survival in the laps of the poker gods.  The larger stacks will often not be folding to your pre-flop shove, and even if you have a monster it"s not guaranteed to hold up.  So it might be the case that you need to get busier slightly earlier?  Alternatively, you might be getting "busy" slightly too early with marginal hands when in fact you could be waiting a little longer for slightly better opportunities to steal or double-up.

The other thing to remember is variance.  You might be playing perfectly, and the luck is running against you in the short term. 

GiMac:
I can only echo Laz and Dan"s posts above.

An MTT is all about survival and, whilst getting a big chip stack early on means you should go deeper it doesn"t guarantee a final table appearance. In fact some of my best results have come where I"ve been bumping along between half average stack and average stack. Your stack in relation to the cost per round is far more important. It"s all about making the money or final table and once that has been acheived making the most of the situation you find yourself in. For instance I was recently playing a live rebuy tournie and didn"t win a hand during the rebuy period. I rebought and topped up and then had very few hands or stealing situations, but managed to survive to the final table and got there with 4 x BB, which to be fair was a bit short. But once on the final table managed to get a good run of cards, won a few races and ended up winning the tournament outright. On another occasion I had the preverbial 1 chip left on the bubble of local £200 tournie. Instead of just chucking in with any 2 cards I waited nearly a full round before I had a hand i thought would be ahead and played then, quadrupling up whilst someone was getting their bullets cracked on the other table by the chip leader and ended up coming 5th for £800.

I think what we are mainly saying is don"t worry too much about others. Just concentrate on managing your own stack and dont panic if you get "short", stick to your game and if it"s good enough, and the poker gods are smiling, it will shine through.

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