Any hints to chip leaders?

YYfourU

YYfourU

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I constantly find myself within the top chip leaders on tournaments but can’t get to final tables constantly, make the money lots but no real wins, only one second place 3.30$ tournament a month ago, started tournaments 3-4months ago with freerolls where I was doing well so I started money tournaments. Remember placing Dozen times in casinos 40 person tournaments. Took one first place. But as a successful cash player I can lead tournaments easily on sundays , where I get to spend my entire day and concentration, but can land final tables. Should I be doing something different-after I reach first place in chips. Think I should sit on away mode and just kill time and not play? Tighten up my hands just runs me into bad beats verses small stacks throwing me on tilt.
 
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LetterRip

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Tighten up my hands just runs me into bad beats verses small stacks throwing me on tilt.



You should be attacking medium stacks - they have enough chips that they have ICM pressure to play very tight and let you steal from them. You want to keep the short stacks around because the medium stacks don't want to take risks till the short stacks bust.
 
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DollarDonJon

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Thank you for this post. You helped me today find out something that is very informative. I usually attack small stack and play monsters. But the middle stack is an avenue I will go down in the future. Good Luck to all you members here.
 
P86

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Play less hands when you have a big stack as many players will count on you calling with a wide range and no matter what you will run bad or bed cards dead in course of an MTT so you need to be efficient in these cases...
 
pit85

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Play less hands when you have a big stack as many players will count on you calling with a wide range and no matter what you will run bad or bed cards dead in course of an MTT so you need to be efficient in these cases...
Always I do this mistake to play lots of hands when I am leader,no patience and result is bad
 
terryk

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Tournament play is about changing gears as you get deeper,the quality of players improved obv,also you will have players gunning for you,,,,so play like a Rock after you have accumulated a nice stack. ;)
 
pirateglenn

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Completely agree with previous posts but i would also add that there is a lot of value in keeping disciplined with good basic play, stick to specific hands to enter pots in, utilise position and pick your spot carefully if you want to C bet with the intention to either bluff or raise all in on the river - often when many players get chip happy and are carrying a stack they over relax and become poorly disciplined and play lots of pots - DONT!
Remember solid basic MTT tourney play as well as the need to mix it up as you progress deeper - the deeper you go, the more players will test you to the river to get you to three barrel..
 
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I have the same issue, I can end up a leading chip player, then suddenly throw it away rapidly.

My problem is once I get a bad beat I end up throwing it away chasing my losses, which I know I shouldn't do but I struggle to stop doing.
 
gon4iypes

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Accumulating chips is easy....keeping them is harder, and using them cleverly...well that gets a bit trickier
 
infonazar

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I constantly find myself within the top chip leaders on tournaments but can’t get to final tables constantly, make the money lots but no real wins, only one second place 3.30$ tournament a month ago, started tournaments 3-4months ago with freerolls where I was doing well so I started money tournaments. Remember placing Dozen times in casinos 40 person tournaments. Took one first place. But as a successful cash player I can lead tournaments easily on sundays , where I get to spend my entire day and concentration, but can land final tables. Should I be doing something different-after I reach first place in chips. Think I should sit on away mode and just kill time and not play? Tighten up my hands just runs me into bad beats verses small stacks throwing me on tilt.


This indicates a lack of patience. Always try to play with good cards, carefully considering your every decision and no matter what stage of the tournament. This is the most effective approach.
 
Roller

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You should be attacking medium stacks - they have enough chips that they have ICM pressure to play very tight and let you steal from them. You want to keep the short stacks around because the medium stacks don't want to take risks till the short stacks bust.

Very good advice, very much standard text book play now days if played correctly. Table dynamics also has a ton to do with who of the medium stacks you should attack.
 
Luvepoker

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I constantly find myself within the top chip leaders on tournaments but can’t get to final tables constantly, make the money lots but no real wins, only one second place 3.30$ tournament a month ago, started tournaments 3-4months ago with freerolls where I was doing well so I started money tournaments. Remember placing Dozen times in casinos 40 person tournaments. Took one first place. But as a successful cash player I can lead tournaments easily on sundays , where I get to spend my entire day and concentration, but can land final tables. Should I be doing something different-after I reach first place in chips. Think I should sit on away mode and just kill time and not play? Tighten up my hands just runs me into bad beats verses small stacks throwing me on tilt.

Without more information its not really possible to give solid advise. So you are able to get a big stack often. That is great but may also indicate the issue or maybe not. Can you give details as to what seems to happen once you get the big stack so we could help more?

One thing that's more normal than not i early big stacks dont equate to wins or even deep runs. About 2 weeks ago i had built up a sick stack early when I got into a battle with the big stack. 30/60 He raised to 150 and I 3 bet him to 475 and he jammed 15000 as a 4 bet with pocket 3's.yeah he jammed 250BB 4bet. and he lost it all to my aces. Many big stacks can bully illogically and lose there stacks. If he had bet say 1400 i could fold some of my hands I 3bet with and if I 5 bet him he would have known better to jam but no he thought he could bully and win. Yes it works a ton but this is also how they loose there chip leads. FYI, I finished 2nd.
 
ADRI7HO

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If you manage to get into the chip leader position, you should try to keep it with a hard aggressive game (of course, this is not always successful and it is rare for the the first day chip leader to be the chip leader at the final table.)
A good example of this Jamie Gold is the winner of the 2006 wsop Main Event. He got a significant chip lead from Day 4 and kept it almost all the way, with aggressive play and incredible bluffs.
 
AKQ

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I constantly find myself within the top chip leaders on tournaments but can’t get to final tables constantly, make the money lots but no real wins, only one second place 3.30$ tournament a month ago, started tournaments 3-4months ago with freerolls where I was doing well so I started money tournaments. Remember placing Dozen times in casinos 40 person tournaments. Took one first place. But as a successful cash player I can lead tournaments easily on sundays , where I get to spend my entire day and concentration, but can land final tables. Should I be doing something different-after I reach first place in chips. Think I should sit on away mode and just kill time and not play? Tighten up my hands just runs me into bad beats verses small stacks throwing me on tilt.

The chipleader should be the best player.
Knowing who to avoid,
who to push on,
and who to get value from.

I just keep doing what got me into the chip leader position in the first place
 
Sergei 9417

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Accumulating chips is easy .... storing them is harder and using them wisely ... well, it gets a little harder
Hi.
Correct definition of this situation, I have this problem too.
 
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You started with tournaments 3-4 month ago, and played freerolls in the beginning. Ok but how many buyin MTTs have you played then, and what was the average feild size? There is some simple math involved here, which should help to allign your expectations. If for instance the average field size is 1.000, then an average player will need to play 111 tournaments to reach the final table in a 9-max format. In 8-max format its 125.

And to reach top 3 he will need to play 333 tournaments. And of course the distribution will not be even, so going 1.000 tournaments without reaching top 3 is certainly possible without this really indicating a problem. Now of course a winning player should reach the top-3 more freqently, but that realistically means something like one in every 200-300 tournaments, not one in every 50 or 100 tournaments, still assuming a field of 1.000.
 
Zapahlohotrona

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Steal the blinds, crush small stacks. The way you play depends on your image at the table. Watch your opponents, there is always someone to steal from, someone to push at because of his low stack. The main advantage of a chip leader is his stack. Accordingly, you should not load it into marginal hands, but rather play less variance, play small pots in relation to the stack. On the bubble and in the late stage, it is naturally worth building up the pressure, because opponents already have something to lose.
 
AKQ

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I constantly find myself within the top chip leaders on tournaments but can’t get to final tables constantly, .


The final table seats 9 players
No matter if you are chipleader or the poorest.
The last 9 sit

And just because im chipleader doesn't erase the FACT that there are 1300 players still left in the game
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KozakAlex

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Yes. It is difficult. When high in the tournament, it is difficult not to play and reset to take a place higher. I think we need discipline and patience. Over time, experience should allow you to develop the optimal style of play to get to the final table.
 
franken222

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I've got the same problem as you. Regularly in the money, but not very many major wins.

I found that reading a book by Dan Harrington called "Harrington On Hold'EM" has helped me get a bit deeper into the tournaments, with slightly bigger payouts.

You might want to take a look at it.
 
nuttea

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I constantly find myself within the top chip leaders on tournaments but can’t get to final tables constantly, make the money lots but no real wins, only one second place 3.30$ tournament a month ago, started tournaments 3-4months ago with freerolls where I was doing well so I started money tournaments. Remember placing Dozen times in casinos 40 person tournaments. Took one first place. But as a successful cash player I can lead tournaments easily on sundays , where I get to spend my entire day and concentration, but can land final tables. Should I be doing something different-after I reach first place in chips. Think I should sit on away mode and just kill time and not play? Tighten up my hands just runs me into bad beats verses small stacks throwing me on tilt.
The strategy that everyone thinks of when playing chip poker in a poker game is to be ultra-aggressive and bet every time to get lucky opponents to fold. But this tactic of permanent aggression is risky and can hit you in one fell swoop if one player gets the perfect cards to take a good chunk of your pot. Thus, it is better to give preference to the selective aggression approach.That is, it will, of course, continue to put pressure on your opponents, betting on large amounts that are difficult to keep track of, but not at any time or simply how. Remember that the path to becoming a chip leader is long and replete with pitfalls, but the path to losing this status can be very short and brutal, so you must know how to maintain it.If you find yourself becoming the chip leader at the start of a game or tournament, it won't be very exciting to be aggressive from the start for two reasons. First, because even players with fewer pots than you will have aggressive tactics to try to catch up with other players; so it would be wiser to let them perch each other without risking losing too many tokens in the battle
 
AKQ

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The strategy that everyone thinks of when playing chip poker in a poker game is to be ultra-aggressive and bet every time to get lucky opponents to fold. But this tactic of permanent aggression is risky and can hit you in one fell swoop if one player gets the perfect cards to take a good chunk of your pot. Thus, it is better to give preference to the selective aggression approach.That is, it will, of course, continue to put pressure on your opponents, betting on large amounts that are difficult to keep track of, but not at any time or simply how. Remember that the path to becoming a chip leader is long and replete with pitfalls, but the path to losing this status can be very short and brutal, so you must know how to maintain it.If you find yourself becoming the chip leader at the start of a game or tournament, it won't be very exciting to be aggressive from the start for two reasons. First, because even players with fewer pots than you will have aggressive tactics to try to catch up with other players; so it would be wiser to let them perch each other without risking losing too many tokens in the battle
Don't become ultra aggro

allow the aggressive players to be aggressive with wide ranges and outplay them accordingly.
small ball approach works well for playing against nits and tags
using position and your opponents range against flop,
as your reasoning for your ultra aggression and cbet frequency

You don't have to go crazy, blindly betting to steal and hoping
Each player has a weakness to their strategy
that can be capitalized on more consistently and for a more effective, higher overall chip accumulation rate.

There may be 1000 players in the MTT
but theres only 9 of em sitting with you at any 1 time
and each of them has a name, and a style
focus on beating the players on your table and everything else will come naturally
 
ToNy70929

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As the chip leader, try not to rush to play, play tighter, good cards will find you during the game and you will not shoot often, but accurately and for big:)
 
mariale_1990

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In my case, when I manage to be the chip leader at one point, nothing works for me, neither playing aggressive, nor just playing monster hands, it is as if they said ok now it is time for you to lose or something like that, many times it does not help me to be patient because that It only makes me see how my stack is decreasing and when I realize I am no longer the leader of the tournament, sometimes I just try to adapt and think very well what is the best way to face that situation, study the players at the table very well helps a lot to make better decisions
 
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