You should have let us know first whether you are an advanced player or a beginner, or middle stage. Now, you need to set your mind that you will win the 1st prize when you enter a tournament. Many novice players get lucky in early mid stage, growing their chip stacks to enormous levels, but not aim for the first place, because they think they cant do it. Thats a mistake. They often make really terrible moves. If you won a few lucky
hands in the beginning and say the average stack is 5k and you got 15k, that is no place to try out your luck anymore. You need to tighten your game. Most of the novice players also, when there are 10 players left they stop playing at all , just to get in the money, thats a mistake. Firstly, you dont know exactly how much time it will take for these 10 people to get knocked out and you will get eaten by the blinds. In that situation, you could cash, but just the minimum prize, and when these 10 players are gone, you are in the money, but your chip stack has decreased to that amount that it is almost impossible to get into the better prizes. So, you need to start playing aggressive when there are fewer people before the bubble, because that is the time when people start to tighten their game. You start accumulating chips - blinds, antes. On this stage of the game it is just important to have a hand that has medium to high value post flop, in that meaning Ax Kx and such, because most of the time you wont even see the flop. You need to aim for the first place, not the last ones. Its better to get knocked out on 51 place ( Considering there are 50 places paid ) 2 times, but when you actually get into the money you would want to have a real chance for the first prize, with atleast average chip stack. If you are just playing to get into the money you will not also make little-to-no profit, but you will get used to play with this method because you think just because your BR isnt decreasing - youre doing well. You aim for the better prize, not just to get your buy-in back.