Deepstacks Tournament Strategy

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone had any good strategies or recommendations for playing deepstack tournaments. I don't know why but I have such a hard time making it past the first 30 minutes in these tournaments with starting chips of 2,000 and 3,000 than I do with 1,500. Should I use the standard three times the big blind preflop strategy when the situation calls for it or should I raise more? Or should I try to conserve as many chips as possible since the play will be more loose due to a larger amount of chips in play?

the biggest problem i've found that most people having moving up to big stack tournies is that they play a lot of hands because they have the belief, oh i have twice as many hands, so i can take twice as many chances

in my experience, it is best to play a careful simple game at the start of any tournament, you just have a little more room to play post flop in these tournies but dont call on draws constantly, just cause you think you have more chips

biggest problem i have with these is that ppl tend to make larger bets since they have bigger stacks....for instance ppl will raise it to 375 to call his AQ when he should only be raising to 90 maybe 120...just ridiculous raises and ppl call and get HUGE stacks compared to yours....

so when you look at the tourney leaders in comparison to you.....it looks like your way behind...when the truth is you still have PLENTY of time to get back in the race....and so ppl with only 2500 to 3000 chips after the first break...they just start shoving all in because the average is around 7K and they think they need a quick double up

Yea...I know exactly what you mean PattyR about people making huge raises preflop. It just never fails when I have AQ off-suit or a small pocket pair, someone ALWAYS slams a huge re-raise on me. Chances are they probably only have an Ace with a moderate kicker (especially in the smaller stakes which I normally play). So purty much in most situations I'm S.O.L., UNLESS I have a HUGE hand.

Now that you both mention that, I think I actually have that mindset myself about being able to play more hands lol oops! I never even realized I did that until yall mentioned it haha. I'll for sure take yalls advice from now on!

The benefit of playing deepstacked isn't so that you can 'play more hands' necessarily... but what it does mean is... you're getting the right implied odds to call behind preflop with SC's and low pp's, in hopes of hitting a monster draw/hand, which you might be able to stack off MR. No Fold his TPTK or big overpr.
The reason you might see some larger preflop raises in early levels is by players who are holding big pairs and don't want those SC's to come along to see a flop (or the small pkt. prs. trying to set mine).
Having a bigger starting stack in relation to the size of the blinds changes the type of play that can be profitable on a table. Use this to your advantage... not just as an excuse to spew off chips foolishly.

Good point about your implied odds, but this usually comes more into consideration post-flop. Don't worry about building a huge stack too early in these tourneys, especially if it's low stakes. Let the fish and donkeys chips go elsewhere unless you're in the right spot. Anyone who varies their pre-flop bet size depending on the strength of their hand is an amateur. Use their bet sizes to find out what their holding when they make that bet and take advantage. I would be happy an hour into these tourney's down 700 not playing one hand. That's fine, because in the first hour of low stakes tourneys there are a lot of bad players that will get lucky, just be patient and wait for the real poker to begin.

These are my tournies of choice. I don't change the size of my raises just because I have more chips - I still bet and raise the standard 3-4 x bb depending on the situation. There are cases where I will raise more - but not because it is a deep stack tournie.

I play relatively tight in the first hour and I am almost always still in after the first hour.

I agree with Dakota... i normally play like that as well... I try to make normal bets... also don't push too quick in these tournaments... you have a lot more time to press the panic button.. if you are sitting there with 2k chips and the avg stack is 5k u are still fine...

In a deepstack tourney you can play more hands, but generally you want to be playing them in position. The deeper the stacks, the more advantage position has which means you have to rely less on the strength of your hand. The starting stages of deepstack tourneys play a lot like a cash game. You want to be playing a lot more pot control than the typical protection and stacking TPTK in shortstack tourney play. I love playing them basically because so many tourney players are just plain lost 100+ BBs deep. Only problem is they take longer so I like to play higher buy-ins than I'd normally play just to make the extra time worthwhile.

I concur.