Mid Tourny Question

In most tournaments, I do decently well. My main issue is the fact that when I reach say 1000 of a 3000 person tournament, i feel i get afraid to bet people off pots because if they catch, i'm definitely out. I start to slow play and then the blinds catch up to me and slowly my top 200 of 2000 spot turns into 600 of 1000 into 450 of 500. What can i do late into a tournament to keep the chips coming my way. Thanks

In the middle stages of tournament a lot of players are doing exactly what you are doing tightening up, that is the perfect to loosen up and start stealing like mad. To be succesful at it though you need to know as best you can who at the table is likely to fold anything but a monster hand and start picking on those peoples blinds and weak raises.

I am not particularly good at this BTW, but I understand the strategy and have seen it work amazingly well for and against me. One thing that you will need to do is recognize the people that are employing this strategy by raising and taking way more pots than they have any right to be in and take a reasonable hand and shove over the top, if you are called and they happen to have a great hand so be it you can still outdraw them possibly; More than likely though they will just fold and look to steal from someone else. But you CAN NOT allow them to mercilessly steal blinds from you like that, make them choose another target. Otherwise you will just barely cruise into the money.

yea cause you're at the point where you realize omg i can actually cash and perhaps make a running for the final table.. thats when people get caught and play a bad game.. approach it with the same mentality... sometimes i dont even check the amount of players remaining for long amounts of time.. dont get caught up into the numbers left and the amount till you cash

I think there are a lot of us caught in that stage of their poker development, where we get stuck in that stage of MTT tournaments. I know that a good strategy is just what Steve proposed; loosen up a little bit and steal some blinds. However, I have a hard time acting that way unless I have a huge stack in front of me. If I have a big stack, that stage of the tournament becomes easy, and I steal as often as possible. That creates an even bigger stack and gets you in a position to go deep. But when my stack is around average, I tighten up just like you and watch my position slide. I think next time I'm in that position I will try to set my target finish for top 20 instead of just to cash. With a higher target I would have to push more pots to get more chips. I'll let you know if that helps, but it should in theory...

you know, i never considered the mentality of goin for a point and getting it, whether or not you fail...i guess it would force me to be more agressive and start getting chips, thanks you guys!

this is so true. like everything else courage can be learned. play in small buyin tournaments and try to play like the ones who win lots of chips. if you see more flops, people will more likely call your aces, kings and you climb up high. i see freerolls as a place where i can try to be non conservative.

I have a question though, say you have average chips in the middle stage of a tourney with like KJ suited. The button big stack tries to steal and u reraise about 1/3 of your stack, then the guy pushes. What do you do then??

you have to lay it down, he's not trying to steal now, he has you beat.