If you are cashing tournaments 20-25% of the time you are probably playing too cautiously on the bubble and passing up on opportunities to accumulate chips.
Hi all , great to have Gripsed here with us, great ideas from everyone, I will sorta disagree with this part, I feel you can still manage your itm cashes without getting too carried away on the bubble, I'm short stacked at times in some mtt (probably due to my lack of skills) however some stubborness and clever poker mixed with lots of luck can still allow me to slowly chip up without taking excessive risks (well as much as poker allows) and then get itm , from there the dynamic changes (sometimes) and a lot of players either due to the relief or whatever other matters, get real loose and flowery , going allin with a range more suited to 4 handed play, so here either I tighten up a bit and "ladder" or simply wait for premium type
hands or pressure in position, and start chipping up that way, it could be different ideas for different players, however shows that still possible to have it all - percentage type poker to get itm, then perhaps some extra awareness and risks at the right time will lead to a deep run .
Part of this means a player may still go very deep or win (we never really know which mtt we will win) so why not get itm in the meantime and one of these may be the ones that lead to victory ?
I get that there's variance and being super aggresive , aiming mainly for the victory from the bubble point may help get a huge stack which can ride out "variance" , it will be more risky and may only work say 8% of the time, the rest of the time getting knocked out around the bubble or getting short stacked by doubling up short stacks who will be shoving everything since they can't "weather out the bubble period" ,
running deep means good cards as far as I know, good bluffs etc and plays in certain spots, sometimes it is about the cards , the big moments, AA vs KK , AK vs AQ , TT vs 99 , sometimes these whichever side gets lucky , will win a huge pot and decide the deepness of the running , so I don't see how extra risk at the bubble relates to these big moments,
I'm still learning so I'm tempremental , and having a good string/percentage of itm builds my confidence and belief , pushing me ever forwards (hopefully) , if I think about the opposite of that - very big plays with mid size of big stack around the bubble and then busting out, can only imagine how it could play with someone's confidence,
anyway just what's on my mind, just an opinion , have fun and hope I get better, and we meet at the tables
p.s
The focus shouldn't be on how often you are cashing, but how often you are running deep and WINNING. If you want to play tournaments at a serious rate this needs to be a fundamental part of your thoughts around the game.
this 2nd part I agree with, running deep should be the focus and long term goal, whenever I manage this I feel good and even tempers my emotions if I don't win, as I will feel I have already accomplished most of what I would have set out to do, always good running deep .