Does Early Position Matter?

I often do well in the early stages of tournaments, usually being in the top 10% of players within about an hour, however I seem to find that it all goes wrong after this and I drop places and ultimately bust out. Does tournament position matter much and how can I take advantage of a good early position?

Maybe tighten up your game and try to hold on to the stack you've built up. You can't win it early but you certainly can lose it.

I'd imagine you play fairly loose at the beginning to build your stack up, then by continuing your loose play you get into too many marginal spots and lose all your chips.

I actually tend to play fairly tight at the beginning, but due to the large amounts of all ins in 1$ MTTs when I get a good hand (AA, KK, AK, QQ) I get paid off a lot. Then I tend to loosen up to try and get the blinds, and smaller pots.

One of the advantages of getting a good stack is it affords you options. The option to fold might be too low down your priority list. It's great to keep the pressure on, but when two others are duking it out, it might be time to get out of the way. Also keep in mind that vs a big stack (ie. you) villains SHOULD be less likely to be bluffing...

I think what is going on is while you are playing tight in the beginning and taking advantage of those all ins, you are removing the loose players from your table and the total player pool. When you loosen up later, you probably get played back at when you are behind, from a better player, then losing a pot that is bigger than your collective loose playing profits.

Tightening up or playing loose because of the stage of the tournament probably isn't as important as playing based on the player styles sitting at your table. If you can keep snagging small pots with your loose playing I'd say keep doing it despite the stage of the tournament, then tighten up when they catch on, for example

I always be relatively tight.. theres no point spewing your chips or put yourself in speculative spots.. i.e calling a turn card in hopes to hit your draw or whatever. very quick way to be under 1k in no time,

SNGs don't really start till blinds are 100/200, although having a stack at this stage is nice, its not essential.

You can take advantage of playing with a bigstack. What I'd suggest is > if you like playing aggress. (as suggested above), then keep making stabs at smaller pots but when played back at, let it go... hopefully they will play back at you when you actually have a monster.. which will get you paid off on even more so.
Often case is > chips won aren't worth nearly as much as chips lost. ie. sitting with a 60bb stack.. & getting mixed up in a big pot where you stand to lose or win another 40bb's.. obv. much better to sit with 60bb then to risk losing & having only 20. One needs to evaluate situations & be looking ahead in hands. Although you need to win every single chip to win a tournament, you don't need to win them all right away. (think of your stack as a tool to get you to the end)

Might wanna change the title of your thread to > Does 'Early levels' matter?(in MTT)

Some great advice there. the only thing i can add is i am also willing to push all in on atc against a short stack if less than 10% of my stack. I would use this move only when your sb and bb left to act.

Early position usually refers to where you sit at the table, this hand, relative to the Big Blind. The stages of a tourney, early, middle, pre-bubble, post bubble and late are usually referred to as stages.

So it looks like you have a good handle on the early stage of tourney's. Good.

Early stage will last about 3 levels of blinds, with the first level being the most dangerous as the insaniacs are running amok.

Once the table calms, and you are still in the first few levels, you need to read the table dynamics, who is doing what when and to whom? Take notes on individual players.

Moving into the middle stage, you should be seeing reasonably sound poker, and you might want to consider doing the opposite of what you think the table is doing. If the table is still wild and crazy, be calm and tight. If the table is tight, be the slightly crazy one. In tourneys this is where you need to steal 2 or 3 times every 3 or 4 orbits (this will keep you ahead of the increasing blinds without tagging you as a LAGtard). Add these steals to your normal winning hands and it will keep you in the middle of the pack. Not a bad place to be thru the middle stage of a tourney. You don't shove without great reason.

Key to my thinking has always been if I can stay about average, I will end up heads up.

Pre-bubble;

Understanding the table dynamics here is crucial. Everyone at the table (presumably) understands it is bubble time, and has very likely gone uber nit. Good time for steals, but don't overdo it. Even with monsters you might want to consider not shoving. Play for value if you can, and be patient. You mostly want real made hands to get seriously involved during this phase. You too want to make the bubble, and there are opportunities galore during the pre-bubble stage.

Post bubble;

You can't imagine how much relief many people get from just making the bubble. Everyone loosens up and shorties are thrilled and patting themselves on the back for making the money, and are in immediate need of a double up, so they will be shoving. Good time to refill your drink if your stack is fine. Treat the early post bubble just like the first several orbits at the beginning of the tourney.

In fact, in fractal like form, you can deal with the post bubble play just like it was a whole tourney all unto itself, with an early, middle, and late stage. The final table bubble (signifying the larger money places) will be similar to the pre-bubble game in the larger tourney.

So, it sounds like you start well, but then forget what your goal is. Goal #1 should be to make the bubble (and thus the money), and goal #2 should be to make the final table (and thus the bigger money). IMHO, you should avoid that 'I'm in it to win it' mentality until you are halfway thru the final table. While I agree that I don't get into a tourney to just 'make the bubble', I understand that I must make the bubble in order to get further, and that uber agro attitude about winning it just gets most folks in trouble.

Poker Wisdom herein lies! About the only aspect missing here is "heads-up" play and DJ's wise to not share his. Great comments, Wally

Perfect .... Great responces,

There should be something within this for everyone.

Some great advice in here, many thanks for this.
Like dj11 mentioned, I always try to be near the average stack size an feel comfortable with this. There is no need to be chipleader in early stages.

To sum up what dj11 says:

It depends on what do u want to do in the tournament, I mean if u just want to cash and u get a nice 1st and 2nd stage and u get many chips early u should then turn ultra tight so as to get into the bubble, then play loose and try recover.

If u want to win the tournament u cant do that because u will get to the bubble with few chips remaining so I suggest u should be tight in the beginning and then get loose as son as u are in prebubble, cause people will be ultra tight and u will steal those blinds and antes that will help u post bubble.

Anyway, at any time u should try playing the opposite role ur table does, if its tight get loose, if it's loose get tight

Thanks bullishwwd (http://www.cardschat.com/members/bullishwwd/) , your post helps me too.