I build huge stacks in early stages but need help with middle stages

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NeoBandit

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Hi guys i need some advice.
I have become really good at building huge stacks in the beginning stages of tournaments often 3 times as much as the second player. I was thinking about this today and i realized that once it goes into mid-stages of the game i will often loose what i have gained and get wiped out. I have been searching youtube for mid-stage strategies but not finding much I now need to learn how to adjust my game from beginning stages to mid-stage than to end stage. Does anyone have any advice on how to learn this so i can go on to become a winning player and win to make money and become better player. book suggestions or any advice would be helpful. thanks
 
NWPatriot

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NEO, not sure sure this is a real problem to be fixed - it sounds like just variance at work. I have seen this same phenomena many times, get hot early, then get stone cold when it matters. Double up with A's on the first hand, then lose every hand after that. I would much rather run hot later, but we can't control when we run good and when we get our coolers.

Some folks will say "you just have to make better decisions", and there is a lot to that. Patience is really needed in tournaments. It is very easy to bleed chips away on marginal hands that don't make it.

Dan Harrington wrote some fantastic books on tournament poker. This may help with your thought process, if you haven't read them yet. Some will say these are outdated. Poker play sort of goes through cycles as players adjust to specific strategies and come up with new ways to exploit them. This does make "solving poker" difficult, because once you solve something, there is the next guy try trying to solve for your strategy. Very dynamic, but i do believe you must have a solid foundation in order to make those "better decisions".

Good luck...
 
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demios

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Hello, the beginning stage is the hardest to play good poker so you have a good foundation. I recommend the books "Winning poker tournaments one hand at a time".
 
Bozovicdj

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Hi guys i need some advice.
I have become really good at building huge stacks in the beginning stages of tournaments often 3 times as much as the second player. I was thinking about this today and i realized that once it goes into mid-stages of the game i will often loose what i have gained and get wiped out. I have been searching youtube for mid-stage strategies but not finding much I now need to learn how to adjust my game from beginning stages to mid-stage than to end stage. Does anyone have any advice on how to learn this so i can go on to become a winning player and win to make money and become better player. book suggestions or any advice would be helpful. thanks



Let's start with your early-game strategy, as in, how do you get that stack to be big. Not trying to diminish your achievement in starting levels of a tournament, but it is possible you are having a small sample size so a bit of luck may be a part of your success. That being said, maybe some small changes are needed in that part, and then go from there to mid-stage.

In general, as the blinds get higher, especially with ante, players stacks become smaller by the level. That usually induces tighter plays, because everyone wants to preserve their stack as long as possible. If you find yourself having a big stack at a table with rather small stacks, you should try and steal blinds as often as possible.
Also, as blinds are getting higher, it becomes very hard for players with smaller stacks to see flops, meaning to just call a pre-flop bet. Their only option is often enough to shove and survive that way. In that sense it is good to make min raises with slightly wider range of hands like suited connectors that you maybe wouldn't play otherwise. Reasoning behind min betting here is that you will likely get away with it and win 2 or 2,5 BB pot (with antes) while it would be a no-brainer to fold if someone was to shove over you.
 
TeUnit

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I just think the middle stage might be the most difficult to accumulate chips. Fish tend to spew off chips early and late stage people are trying not to bubble - so in the mid stage you are left with non fish who are not as concerned about bubbling.
 
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Alex330

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You just need to bluff and steal in as many profitable situations as possible.
 
terryk

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I had this problem when i first started too,,,i would run-up a huge stack,then "poof",,,gone.I think it's a few factors,your good at playing "bad" players,and there are alot at the beginning,but as we get along in the tourny,the better players remain,,,here's where you have to change gears and tighten up(you can't play the same thru a tourny,but you already know this,,)You'll notice alot of big stacks just sit-out,there might be something to this,,,perhaps to "miss" the eventual "set-up" hand that comes,,,you know the one where you just CAN'T fold,,,Good luck in your journey! ;)
 
pancho_1954

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Something similar happens to me, when I build a good stack, it reaches a point where I'm stuck, and I think the variance starts to play a little against me, and I start to lose control, I'm trying to concentrate a bit more and make a better reading my opponents
 
Spaceman

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Building huge stack in early stages I translate it as either the field is especially soft so you get your flush value bets called by middle pair or getting your premium pocket pair shoves called by 9 10. This or you are playing especially aggressive like shoving on the flop top pair and just get lucky.

In the later stages though, the field has thinned, the fishes got eaten and left only at least abc players or sharks. So when you shove your top pair on the flop, while in early stages you may get called by ace high and win the pot, in middle stages you are always called by something better than top pair.

While indeed there is the variance issue, most of the time its a leak of yours. Leaks are not universal. You may lose your big stack because you are willing to call a shove from a stack utg that covers you with just pocket 3s. You may not know how to play big stack bully and steal blinds and antes. You may not know when to fold but wrongly believe you are being bluffed or hope to get lucky and call big raises and check raises chasing draws. You may not be able to have reads on players, as what hands they play, how often, and end up calling the nittiest nit on the table with an instant fold hand. You may simply playing a lot of hands and especially "bad beat" magnet crap hands. Maybe you tilt after a bad beat and shove your remaining stack with any two, who knows?

You are the only one who can answer your question. And its not that hard. While you build your big stack, just notice when and why you lose it in the middle to find what you may doing wrong. So, how exactly did you lost your big stack the last time?
 
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fatshady21

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The same thing has happened to me in a few tournaments this days.I think the trick is to control yourself and don't play anything you wouldn't play when you have weak hands.
 
Sil3ntness

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I have a bad habit of late registering missing all the early softer players that donate their stacks at the beginning. Mainly because I don't like playing 4 hours of late registration.

Tournament players have to practice all stages of MTTs: early stage where you play with stacks similar to cash games (75-100+ BBs) Mid stage where you start to get in the 20-50 BB range, and then the late game stage where you'd be happy to be the chip leader of the MTT with 60+ BBs and you can pressure the lower stacks that are only playing to get a min cash (stealing their antes and blinds with extra fold equity).

I always try to take note of the average stack and the players around me to see if I'm falling behind in being aggressive in earning chips. Early stage you can play super tight and just fold until you get big hands to get paid off by bad players that can't fold mediocre hands. Once you start getting to the mid/late stages though you'll need to expand your range to take more opportunities to steal the blinds & antes. It will help you keep up with the blind level "inflation" so that you don't end up with only 4-6 BBs and get called off by big blind's 85 off suit because they're getting priced in to call your min raise all in due to the antes and blinds out there.

Study good 3 bet sizings for both early and late game play you don't want to 3 bet too much of your stack when short stacked or you'll commit yourself to a jam unless that's what you intend to occur. Same thing with min raising I would not recommend min raising with something like 7-9 BBs if you don't want to call a jam because you can't get punished by someone being observant. Learn push/fold ranges for both antes and no antes at different positions at different stack sizes to know when it is mathematically correct to jam.

If you practice good ranges for both early and mid game it will help you out greatly once you get to the late stages where ICM becomes a huge factor where each knockout is a significant pay jump. Goal is to get as much chips ASAP so that you can put extra pressure on the rest of the table that is folding more than usual to get those pay jumps. You will run into some good players that realize you are doing this and jam lightly, but that's why you should study also study the correct calling ranges for different stack sizes and position.

I know I'm rambling, but tournament poker is very complex at the mid stage and all the other stages too. Not including playing short handed and eventually heads up where the biggest pay jump is considered.
 
NWPatriot

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You are the only one who can answer your question. And its not that hard. While you build your big stack, just notice when and why you lose it in the middle to find what you may doing wrong. So, how exactly did you lost your big stack the last time?


I agree that the best person to answer those questions is yourself. Great checklist of things to think about Spaceman.

I have always recommended that you keep great records of your sessions. I have stats and info on every live tournament I have ever played. I keep track of key stats (buyin, hrs played, finish, qty players, amount won, date, etc.) as well as notes on key information about the session, how I was eliminated and any other seemingly important info. Lately i have also begun ranking myself from 1-10 on some key poker variables to try and objectively assess my session. This is proving to be quite valuable as I am discovering that it is much easier to "know" something than it is to "do what you know". Kind of like real life, eh?

Here is a screen shot of an App i made for myself to capture the rankings info (though capturing it in excel is just as easy). This shows the type of things, beyond the statistics, that I find valuable to capture. I will be evaluating if Spaceman's questions are adequately captured here.

SelfAssessment
 
radartodd69

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I like chipping up early. Then I spend the rest of the game trying to keep/better my chip stack. I like to play multiple games. That seems to help keep me from getting bored.
 
TheGiantAsian

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If you are building giant stacks fast and losing them fast it sounds like a transmission problem. You gotta shift gears. Tourneys are like marathons. Folding the best hand might actually be right at times in MTTs. Even if you are wrong for folding, it will never be the end of the tourney. If you call off your stacks, even with aces, you still might lose because you are never guaranteed to have the winning hand. You can't win the whole tourney in the middle stages but you can certainly lose it.
 
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63burner

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Middle Stages think big picture, stay out of fights..

Hi guys i need some advice.
I have become really good at building huge stacks in the beginning stages of tournaments often 3 times as much as the second player. I was thinking about this today and i realized that once it goes into mid-stages of the game i will often loose what i have gained and get wiped out. I have been searching youtube for mid-stage strategies but not finding much I now need to learn how to adjust my game from beginning stages to mid-stage than to end stage. Does anyone have any advice on how to learn this so i can go on to become a winning player and win to make money and become better player. book suggestions or any advice would be helpful. thanks


Once you're out of the beginning stages, you should think, focus on, "what do I need to do to stay around the chip average, be in the running to make ITM?" Having an early stack
can take your focus away, "I'm way above chip average, rolling..."

One way to think long-term is to avoid small-mid losses, to stay around chip average, as blinds enter the $150-$250+ range, re-analyze your stack, "is it enough to limp in? If you don't see yourself as barely making ITM, shift to a slightly more aggressive stance.
 
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NJW

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Middle stages of the tournament is the best time to make some easy chip ups preflop if you have a middle or big stack.

Look for opportunities to steal the blinds with a wide range from late position. You only need to raise to 2.2-2.5x open to achieve this. Pay attention to how tight the players on your left are playing and punish the players who aren't playing enough hands by stealing more liberally against them.

Be very wary of calling all-in shoves from players unless you are getting a very good price to call. Remember the gap concept, you need a much better hand to call a raise then you need to make that same raise. Don't punt off a large portion of your decent stack and lose the ability to freely steal the blinds without going all-in.
 
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