huh? Any proof? How can you say this?
First of, if cEV=$EV early game then doesn't early game follow the same principles of a cash game? So you're saying there's no successful lag cash game players?? and wtf on deeper stacks makes lag worse; have you ever heard of small ball??????????????????
1) it's not a cash game, with the fundamental difference that you can't rebuy at all. (ignoring rebuy tourneys here obv). Chips lost are not easily regained
2) I've heard of small ball too, but you can't play laggy and play small ball. small ball is the antithesis of lag poker. Maybe you play loop poke- loose passive. If yo uare saying you like to limp /call a lot of hands with a wide range in the early levels then OK, not the worst leak - if the stacks are deep enough. FYI tho, they are almost never deep enough for this in a 1500 chipper - it netter be 3k or more...)
If you are really playing lag, opening for araise with all sorts oif crap, 3 betting constantly, IMO you are going to be very -EV in these early levels,
unless you are extremely talented and/or playing super-nits.
There are successful lag cash game players, but you've got to be even better to a succesful lag than TAG- it takes a lot more skill to pull off. And to translate it to tourney play, you may never reach the point of the big payoff of being lag- which is showing everyone you are a maniac and then showing up with the monster that you'll stack someone with. (Likely that you either get moved or never get that monster in a tourney.) That's where the real profit in playing lag is - unless there are antes involved of course and simply taking pots pre is enough to accumulate alot.
No, I don't have an article to prove this to you. But by rebuttal, I'd say name me one successful lag player in tournaments - who isn't an absolute beast. All the players that I am friends with personally who had been playing laggy early (and I mean truly lagggy, not loose-passive...but loose aggressive- 3betting pre, 2 and 3 barreling air etc) discovered that they were ridiculously more profitable once they got it reined in a bit, or a lot.
I'll give you an example of a hugely successful LAG - Yvgeny Timoshemko (sp?) who goes by Jovial Gent. He won the WPT title a couple years ago for 2Mill+ and has IIRC at least one if not two 1 Million + online cashes. The man is a monster. I was shocked to see him play something like 33/25 vpip/PFR in the first levels of a deepstack (5k chips) sunday tournament (I was at the same table ,so i have the actual stats if you need to have me dig them out.)
On that given day, while I was still at his table stacks were in the 80-100+BB range, and he happened to sorta sine wave up and down around the starting stack. THe table also adjusted around him once people noticed his laginess. Now obviously this works for him and he has the results to prove it. My expectation is tho that he has the ability to switch gears at will and probably owned some fools by the time he got table moved.
That is the example of an expert.
THe likelihood is though, that you aren't remotely at that level (and neither is anyone else on this board). So it's equally likely that you would have much better results if you weren't as laggy (or whatever it is you are really doing) early in tournaments. I'm sure for every time it lets you chip up massively there are one or more times it really dents your stack.
Cliffs:
-Yes early tournament play is like a cash game, IF STACKS ARE DEEP ENOUGH (ie 80+ BB deep).
-Yes there are succesful LAG cash game players, but they profit on teh small moves by getting paid on the big ones, which come only after many many hours of play to establish image, or working off of historical image vs same opponents. (which isn't likely happening in your typical online tourney for you)
-Successful tourney lags are much more skilled players then average- since they need to make sure they get OUT of trouble... and in fact have to be able to read when they are getting INTO trouble
-Doubt there are many people on here good enough to adopt this style and be super-profitable
p.s. I'm no nit myself- I am usually one of the looser players at the table. But I definitely don't go all laggy early, that is the formula for usually chopping DOWN your stack.