cant seem to finish

I play pretty tight for the most part. I know how to read the table and steal blinds later in the game and all. I'm also pretty good at reading players and snuffing out bluffs n stuff. For some reason it seems after half of the field is gone, I start getting good cards (AK, AA, KK, QQ) but get beat. Either it renders me helpless because a shorter stack has gone all in, or I dominate the board and go all in, sometimes all in preflop. Thing is I seem to usually get beat by JJ, 66, or something much weaker than my hand. Or I get trips and they get a flush or straight on me on the turn or river. I have been finishing just outside the money on Full Tilt Poker pretty often and I don't know what to do. Any advice?

Any evidence of this happening over a long period of time say 500 tourneys but even thats still a fairly small sample size.

Seems like standard variance to me.

Like jurn8 said, it is probably just variance. Think about it this way, if you go AI preflop with Aces and you get called by 66 you will loose 20% of the time, and that is if it's heads up if you get called by the same guy and some one holding 22 you are only going to win 66% of the time. That may sound like a huge favorite (it is) but in the long run you will still loose a good bit of the time. Also, you don't always have to go AI preflop, yeah you do have an advantage preflop, but your EV after the flop can be far larger. You can have someone calling your bets even if they are drawing dead. AI preflop is something you will have to do sometimes but it isn't the be all end all in poker

Do you request your hand histories from FT? If so, maybe in some of these tourneys when there's a particular hand in question you can post it in the hand anyalsis threads and get some specific feedback.

*Welcome to CC

its hard to win or even cash in a tournament. nobody gets in the money all the time, even the pros.

plus if you play on tilt. there prize pools only pay the top 10%. most sites are 15 or 20%.

so its even harder to make the money on tilt.

It sounds like a cooler to me... bad side of variance. But I agree with buddy above. Tilt sucks for me at least, would much rather be at Stars or elesewhere..

I've been experiencing the same kinds of issues (even making the final table on occassion) but losing in the end to bigger stacks who follow me all-in despite weaker hands. Last night I went all-in after the flop with AK, and got called by 75 who needed to draw two cards (one inside) to make a straight and somehow managed to do just that! I don't think the problem is my play, but just bad luck. Yours is probably the same, so just stick with it and hope for the odds to eventually reward you.

There is no doubt the final table is the most difficult place to play for obvious reasons. However I do not go with your theory that you always lose to 66 or JJ. If you have better pocket cards then you will win more than you lose. You might be going through a bad spell but kep playing your game and it will change. Good luck.

I'd have to agree with the concensus of the thread. Most of the time strong play earlier in a tourney will stem the tide of beats that you will take later in the tourney. Sometimes taking a beat with an over pair, say... q-q against 6-6 can help u. Players that cant see the forrest before the trees sometimes seem to think that just because they beat you earlier with a lesser hand tend to think they have some sort of luck against you. But infact the odds will come around and you'll be on the winning end of the stick. gl to u

I play the same way. And sometimes have same problem. Usually it comes in a row. So I make break for 5 minutes after first bad beat.
And I finish in prize more often, than without money

thank you all for your advice. i think that far too often i feel the need to go all in to keep people from sucking out on me. many times id rather just take it down preflop to avoid it. not to mention later in the game the blinds and antes are much more rewarding.
a subtopic
I run into the problem of having top pr top kicker very often, but there is a flush draw on the board. usually i will bet, and often they will raise, i will call or go all in depending on my read on them. they may or may not catch it on the turn. you can imagine the following steps. seems no matter how I play it they won't lay it down. of course then you have to start questioning 2 pr or stronger. Do you all suggest relying on luck and hoping that suit doesn't come or do you have a betting stradegy suggestion?