Tournaments what am I doing wrong (or right)

[MadeHand]

I've been playing a fair number of MTTs having been playing NL hold em cash games before. I haven't reached a final table yet but have cashed (these usually have about 600 entrants or so.)

I'm just wondering if there's anything I'm doing wrong and if you have any advice to give.

After the first hour the blinds have gone up to the extent that a starting stack is now in trouble. So then actually playing poker becomes impossible- no post flop play unless you're a big stack, which hasn't happened unless you've got cards and paid off in the first hour.

Then it becomes a question of finding big cards and going all in or standard raises to steal the blinds. Stealing with rubbish doesn't seem to work because of the prevalence of other short stacks who will go all in themselves when they see chips on the table. To be effective, with a 3xBB raise it would need to work more than 2 times out of 3 which it doesn't really, therefore, there seems little value in doing it other than to not appear too tight.

So this inevitably leads to alot of bustouts with a cash occurring on the rare occasions you actually get cards. Other players seem to play the same way with a few loose guys who make dumb all ins and calls.

There just seems to be so much less skill in these shallow stacked tournaments compared to cash games.

[MJBuddy]

The steal doesn't have to work 2 out of 3 times.

Let's say I raise to 150 at 50/25. If BB calls 100, then my CBet makes him lay down his hand, then I made 100 more than I would have from that steal.

I make far more from CBets from steals than I do from steals, and as a result, I make much much much more when I hit the flop hard.

[Mr_Donktastic]

Just keep getting ITM and eventually things will go your way and you will get a FT.

There isn't alot of poker to be played with less than 20BBs...just play accordingly and try to at least stay even and then hopefully get your stack in as a slight fav or a flip.

There's a reason they are called donkaments.

[Win.by.TKo]

MadeHand, read Harrington on Hold'em I & II, then the workbook (part III), if you haven't already. There are several concepts, ideas and plays there.

[yurk]

Guess it really depends on your goal at the start of the tournament. If your playing for the top 3 spots, I think you need to be aggressive early and accumulate some chips in order to control your spots in the later blinds.

I know I have trouble with this on Stars tourneys once they hit the 200/400 level and I've played too tight in the earlier rounds.