[MLG]

Balt,
I kind of thought thats where this was going. The idea of turning down risky high EV situations in order to allow yourself to profit from later high EV situations that to entail that level of riskiness in the arena of a poker tournament is generally a bad idea. There is a lot of literature in the archives about it. While you are right that you should be considering exactly how much ev you are gaining my upping your varience, you should very very rarely (especially early in a tournament) be passing up ev to reduce risk.