BB's mow down my stack in live MTTs

[zacspeed]

Ive been playing quite a few live poker MTT games lately.
Today I played a big tournament with about 200 players.

Towards the latter stages of a tournament I struggle to maintain a decent stack size and it forces me to start pushing all in (when im under 10 BBs).

I just dont seem to get the hands to push all in with and run out of time/blinds.
ie I was down to 7 BBs and got 10-10 so went all in, then someone called and sucked me out with their A7 and hit the A.
I had them covered and still had 1.5BBs left. So I was left with a limited amount of hands to push all in with. I was Under the Gun and went all in with a crap hand (J3) and needless to say there was a 3 way all in and I got beat.

Anyway my point being, this is typical of many MTTs I play.
Im not sure what to do to maintain a decent stack.
Im not getting the hands to value bet with and too many people just call when I try to bluff or steal so that only provides limited options.
Please help........

 

[zacspeed]

*bump*

 

[Nathan Smith]

Improve your poker playing with a deep stack so that you can build your chips earlier in the tournament. I have heard people refer to a big stack as having "extra lives" so they can afford to make more mistakes or lose flips later in tournaments. Also if you want your short stack to last longer sometimes you need to shove before you get as low as 10BB. There are spots where you need to gamble your 20BB stack to get to the final table.

 

[zacspeed]

Thanks Nathan,Im not sure I follow exactly.
I find that when I shove I get sucked out eventually.

 

[Jakobsladder]

Short answer: My guess is you are too tight in all positions and aren't opening enough hands.

Try loosening up your preflop game and choose smaller opening sizes. Get used to playing lots of pots postflop and work on improving your postflop game.

Pay attention to your stack and understand you have certain strengths/weaknesses on different stacks sizes like 0-10bb, 11bb-20bb, 21bb-30bb, etc.

 

[Jakobsladder]

Thanks Nathan,Im not sure I follow exactly.
I find that when I shove I get sucked out eventually.

When you are short, generally 15bb or less, look for spots where you can open shove profitably. There are plenty of push/fold charts available online. Yes, you will get sucked out sometimes, but you will also win a lot of pots uncontested and suck out on better hands.

 

[zacspeed]

Thanks for the replies.
I know I play pretty tight as at these live games most people are rather loose and a calling station.
If I have a night where I get good cards I usually get to the final table (probably 1 in 3-4 times).

I will work on opening my ranges.

Cheers for the advice too on the push/fold chart. Thats a major weakness of mine too. When I get to <10BB and start pushing all in, I most likely will end up taking a hit and ending my tournament life.