Are you a chip accumulator?

I'm interested in how everyone approaches a tourney. Do you play tight in the beginning, waiting for premium cards or do you come out firing and play position with any cards and try to accumulate chips early?
I've read books about each method, and I was curious what the majority is and if their way works best. I have done both with mixed results.

My general rule is to start tight and open up as the tournament proceeds, using late positions if possible to try and pick off blinds. im not a fan of early parts of tournaments due to rediculous amounts of bad beats but we all have to play through that period, one of my favourite periods of tournaments these days is the around "the bubble". i used to hate it and try and make sure i made the money before i realised so many players play like this so will fold premium hands. its like being put in a goldmine with a pick axe and a wheelbarrow and told you can take whatever you can carry(it requires some effort to dig that gold but totally worth it)

It really depends upon the table I'm at and the structure of the tourney. I think you need to be versatile and capable of mixing it up.

I used to always play very tight in early going... nowadays not necessarily so.

I like to sit back and watch the first few hands. Play small ball with small pots and get a feel for your opponents and start to label them (passive, aggressive, fish, donkey, maniac)

I won't (neccessarily necessarily neccesarily necessarely? OMG I need sleep I can't even spell anymore)

I like to see hands that went to show down with players (using the last hand option on FT) as this makes it much easier to label opponents who do not show losing hands.

I like to pick my spots, if I know I'm up against a fish and I have top pair top kicker on a flush draw board I'll fire a single 2/3 pot bullet. If the player originally checked to me so I can gauge his/her hand if they call I will check it down and play very cautiously.

I typically like to label opponents as loose or tight more so than passive/aggressive. I will play premium hands against a loose player and widen my range with a tight player. Just because with skill set in mind, loose players look for reasons to call whereas tight players look for reasons to fold.

I don't even know if any of this became relevant to the topic but maybe it did, im off to bed.

i often run into tables where i deem it profitable to play 50+% of hands and minraise/smallball to get lots of chips in low variance spots

I know what this thread is trying to explain. Normally there is one guy in the tourney with a gross amount of chips by the first break. This is an example of "chip accumulator." These people will see every flop they can, chase every draw they can and hit all their draws whether they had odds to call or not. Normally it is a bad player who had variance on their side. On the other side of things, you'll have people who will just see flops with min / mid pairs trying to set mine, and besides that are tight until antes are involved. I try to set mine, but that's as loose as I will play. Anything else is too loose, and you'll deal with a lot of draw situations where you don't have odds to play it.

Well for me its all about the table, I let a few hands play out and watch for a min or 2.
But if the table seems all in happy, I'll wait for the premium hands and play there all in game and double up if i don't recieve a bad beat.
I've tried both ways myself when appraoching the start of a tournament.

If i push to hard at the start with the big hands i've noticed i recieve more bad beats. Seems like the only way i can start building a stack early is to trap people into my hand. Set that trap, let them fall in it, i double up, they get railed lol

Well, when i play our live 40 man tournament twice a week, i usually start out aggressive, raising in late position with nearly any hand and stealing blinds, making continuation bets etc.

Once we are on the 3rd level of blinds i slow it down completely, limp in to pots and trying to see flops, unless i have a large stack in which case i stay aggressive, should my stack become 10 times the blind its when i start pushing all in.

Late in the tournament, around the final table and/or bubble, if i am at a large stack i sit on my chips, if im more than 10 times the blinds i play premiem hands, but aggresivly, if im short stack, i push him with anything above J 10 (depending on position ofcourse)

I think starting tight does make sense, but if everyone else is starting tight, it might be a good strategy to start aggressive... and as everyone loosens up, you could tighten up if you accumulated a big stack.

If only there was a way that we could play tight... while still playing aggressive...

I've got it! We could play Tight-Aggressive!

a lot of my play depends on how the rest of the table is going -I will try to get into small pots with suited connectors/middle to small pairs sometimes even with like a 6-8/10-8 suited or not I will get aggressive at the blinds/limpers with larger pairs or A+high card 'specially if suited but mainly I tend to be tight-aggressive thru out the tourny..paitence pays off

I think it all depend on a number of factors.

1) Buy in amount
2) Starting stack
3) Type of players at your table.

But as a general rule of thumb I find the following

With big buy in $1,000+ deep stack tournaments I find that most players start out very tight passive. Lot of limping for the first hour or two and not many show downs. In these tournaments I come out with guns blazing and small ball fast and furious. You can pick up allot of small pots early and double up easily. at around hour two or when I see the table loosening up and my image getting no respect I will tighten up and play tight aggressive. Then switch it up as the table changes back.

With small buy in small starting stack tournaments I normally just play tight aggressive and aim to double up as early as I can with a good hand. Small ball does not seem to work as well with small starting stacks in the early faze as most players are donks and will just call with anything. I normally start small balling close to the bubble or once antis are introduced but not until then.



These are just generalisation. Overall the key is flexibility. Change your style to suite your environment. and conditions

tight preflop play very few hands. aggresive post flop when you do play a hand come out firing.

At first i play loose, mid game tighter, final table I push-Fold with short stack or play only premuim hands!

^^This. (btw gadget - welcome to the forum!)

Originally I tried playing both ways, and like you mentioned, with mixed results. Then I noticed there were certain tourneys I preferred playing and started noticing that the table flavor pretty much made up my mind on how I would start the tourney. Observe a few hands, see who I could come out firing against for some small ball, who was a LAG, who are the TAG's, calling stations, donks, etc; Early on there do seem to be more donks which are easier to trap and near the bubble there are many more opportunitys to steal. Once your players stop folding to your blazing saddles, tighten back up a bit, once they think they can push you around, start firing again. Of course since you often move around a lot in mtt's you'll have to be very observant to pick up the flavor of your new table. Whenever I get moved the first thing I do is fold any non premium hand and review previous hands played at that table. You usually can see about the last 4 or 5 and that will help you pick up on the flavor of your new table.

Depends on the game. The full tilt freerolls are so crazy with all kinds of people going all in during the first hand or two that I now do the same. Otherwise you are playing catch up forever. If you hit, great. If not, another freeroll is minutes away. Pretty crazy at the beginning, but then play serious after that. 'Other freerolls are not so bad so it depends on the tournament that in turn makes me decide to be loose or tight at the beginning.

Im def a rock in the Early stages only prems unless i can get a real cheap look with a SPP or SC in late position in a multiway pot folding to a bet unless I hit very hard.
I cant play loose in the Early stages as it tends to throw my entire strategy out but if it works for you and you are showing profit go for it I guess alot depends on how you feel as youn are executing that strategy if it feels right then it must be right.
Alot depends on the make up of your table too If they are all multiway pots with very little raising throw in a few suited connectors if its a very aggresive table where people will go too far with top top then calling in multiway pots with small pocket pairs has good value for set mining Gl and remember watch your opponents at all times.

I try to play tight in the early stages but if I get KK+ and its early, I don't feel that I have much time invested and will call an all-in, especially if there are several people all-in already. This happens quite a bit in the early stages of play and someone is walking away with a lot of chips.

i've been at a lot of tournies where many times they limp in, this is when i play more hands and see the flop and take advantage as much as i can.

otherwise i play it slow and tight in the begining and loosen up towards the end - but sometimes i stay tight at the end if i have a good chip lead so as to not donk away my chips, lol.

and then again if i'm in danger of not making it to itm - it's any 2 cards, lol, all-in, and what ever it takes to get my chip count back up there. as soon as i feel i have a good spot it's go for it!! and don't look back!!

oh i guess i should add that the above is mostly low limits rebuy-add/on and the ones i play that are a little higher i almost always play slow and tight. if i become totally card dead i might have to loosen up a bit but my loosening up could mean small suited connecters and broadway rag offsuits. i hate playing low suited connecters - hate having the idiots end of a straight, lol.
good luck and peace

Depends on weather the table is playing tight or loose. I will play the players. If the table is tight i will play loose and raise until someone stops me. If the table is loose i tighten up and play premium hands. Always mixing my play up.

I am the shark swimming in the minnow pool.

I was a reasonably successful cash game player before I started playing tournaments. When I first started playing tournaments, I was a chip preservationist; all the chip preservationist arguments made sense to me. I felt like I had a good grasp of tournament theory, and I was excellent at reading my opponents. I was seemingly in a great position to tear it up on the tournament scene. Unfortunately, my results from 2003-2005 begged to differ.

Although I was a winning player at single table tournaments, my results in multitable tournaments were horrible. My poker-playing friends and I played a ton of tournaments. I don't know the exact standings, but I'm pretty sure that I was the leader when it came to average finish and percentage of in-the-money finishes.

I believe the question was... what is TAG? (tight-aggressive)
This doesn't mean to play passively preflop but then fire aggressively post-flop (that is Pass/Agg.. very transparent and actually common style for many noobs).
By playing tight/aggressive you want to be 'tight' with your hand selection but when you do play a hand, you want to play it Aggressively (raising or re-raising preflop, etc.).