Poker Tournament Strategy

hi all,
How do you play tournaments?
Do you start off really tight and wait for the bad players to slowly dissapear or do you limp into a lot of pot that you wouldn't normaly play, just becuase the blinds are low. As we are on the subject of tournaments, what is the best placing you have had, out of how many, what site, and how much did you win. ps when is the next freeroll?

my basic strategy when it comes to tournaments is to play tight and to avoid big confrontations early (risking your chips early). i like to take down small-mid size pots here and there to keep myself from becoming low stack, but i stay out of multiway pots unless i have the nuts or the draw + pot odds are worth it.

then after the table has shrunk down a few players i still play tight, but im a bit more agressive when im taking down pots.

then when its down to 3-4 left...again i play tight, but im raising and reraising and stealing pots as often as i can with big hands.

Don't attempt to bluff early in tournament unless you are almost positive you can pull it off.

To win a tourney with 200 people or more i think that luck has a decent percent of that victory, but if you play a solid poker with no mistakes, you will be always at the top places (and that means winning money). My strategy is to play tight at the begging, like 9 handed, and slowly start to change gears as the blinds raises. The benefits of playing tight is that you create an image and later you will be able to steal blinds. One problem with that could be that in a large tourney you are changed from table to table, so it´s difficult to create an image for a long time. That´s why i think that changing gears is the key, because it´s right to wait for a monster hand, but if you see that you are getting short stacked in relation to most of the others players, you will have to get more action and being more agressive. That thing (getting short stacked for playing extremly tight) happens frequently when the 60% of the players are gone.

i agree with chicubs... if u sense weaknes in your oppenets hand, that maybe u can pull it off. i bluff all the time when i play and peopel think i have the nust when really i had 29 off..lol... my best finish was eaither 12 of 900 at full tilt or 4th of 230... in the 4th place i earned around 3.50 and in the 12 i earned nothing becasue only top 4 places get paid. both were at full tilt

jesus, online no one really gives a flyin hoot about your image unless u are going for big money... if its just a freeroll no one will take useriously and u will just get bpushed around by the bigger stacks

I generally play tight until about half the field is gone and during that time a play poker like you would play blackjack as far as two face cards being the best and of course pairs and seldom play small pairs in early position.

for me position is more important early.im pretty much rock solid till the blinds warrant more action by putting more out to grab.thats not to say the cheaper flops are lost on me,i love to buy cheap flops.but window shopping can break you if your not careful.if the tourney starts with 1500 chips i like to see a few flops after the maniacs coolout a lil,but if im down 300 or so its time to change gears,if you can grab the nuts off a cheap early flop and get a large stack,then see every blind you can while they are cheap.the key to this kind of play is to lay down your hand if the turn bets big,unless you flop an absolute monster(and have an understanding of your opponents betting habits)."those who live by the sword die by the sword,but before they die they sever alot of heads"

my strategy is to rely on the mistakes of the person im up against, therefore if the person your playing against makes a bad move when u have a good hand it benefits u more than it does to them

i like to mix up my styles while playing in a tournament. what i mean by this is by playing t/a(tight/agressive). this really works if you can do it right.

No matter what you have to just remember the fundamentals of the game are the same in cash games and in tournaments, you have to take everyone elses chips, so just play how you would normally play.