Experienced Player Question - Improving Overall Play

[crankalicious]

This is somewhat of a philosophical question about getting to the next level.

I've been playing live tournaments, usually with about 60 people. I'm pretty consistent about making it into the top 20, but my situation is usually one where my M is below 10. in the past 8 tournaments, I've cashed once, made two final tables, and made it to the top 20 7 of 8 times.

My approach to these tournaments has been generally to play tight early, but overall, I'd say I'm tight, trying to play premium hands. My thoughts now have turned to believing that I need to loosen up relative to the rounds, but especially after the first break, which usually occurs about 90 minutes in. After that, the blinds are 300/600. Starting chip stack is 4000 or 5000.

Here are my questions: anyone been in a similar situation and if so, what did you do to get to that next level where you felt that you were more in control? What are the next levels for a solid player who has basic command of the fundamentals and who is aware of creative plays he could make but is having difficulty implementing them?

Any other comments would be much appreciated.

[Mingdu]

loosen your fpip slightly ...

It will provide opportunities to stack premium hands and encourage others to play back at your monsters

I'd rather only make the top 20 4/8 but have a decent, workable stack going in

tricky to regulate though and your total numbers are really too small to make any long term projections as to how it will all work out

[jgunnip]

who cares about top 20s when the money is at the top. Be more aggressive and try to build a stack.

[crankalicious]

I don't care about the top 20. What I do care about is increasing my odds of making the money. I figure the farther I go, the better the odds of that. If I'm in more situations where I'm on the precipice of making the final table, I will be able to adjust and being advancing regularly.

[crankalicious]

And I apologize, but could somebody define fpip for me?

[Mingdu]

my bad ... VP$IP ... voluntary put $ in pot

[Sherman]

Read the anthology threads about building a big stack. The eMarkM thread is solid.

[JoeyJoJo Shabadu]

vpip - voluntarily put money in pot (not big blind and entered a hand)