How to get chips early in a tournament???

[ThinkerJE]

I have noticed during my Vegas trip that I am constantly getting short stacked and under pressure when the blinds go up or antes kick in.  Therefore I need to understand how to go about accumulating chips early in a tournament.  Play more hands???  Take more risks???   Bluff more???  It is an area of my game that I must improve.  All the big winners of tournaments seem to be able to get chips early, think about players like De Wolfe, Thew & Vaswani.  I realise there is no simple answer, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers

James.

[Swinebag]

in PP mag one guy reccommends the following (correct me if I"m wrong)

forget playing marginal hands early position (Aj, Kq, Aq)

call any raise (but not a reraise) in late position with any 2 (I assume with a view to taking the pot on later streets)

I tried it and busted out early, but then again so do Vaswani and De Wolfe regularly, it just doesn"t get reported as much. Those players do tend to either bust early or go deep.

Great Vegas updates btw

[Paulie_D]

...call any raise (but not a reraise) in late position with any 2 (I assume with a view to taking the pot on later streets)

Also known as a Farha or a Hansen.

Chipping up early is nice but to do it you have to put chips at risk. That means either:

Playing agressively (because others don"t want to bust out early either) but you might run into a slow-played monster...be aware.

Limping (or calling a raise) with marginal cards A-Face, Suited Connectors etc and hoping to get paid when (if) you hit.

Either way, your chips will be flowing onto the table with no guarantee they"ll come back.

BTW..Farha & Hansen bust out a lot too. Sammy makes his cash playing Blackjack...do you think he knows something we don"t?

[kinboshi]

As has been pointed out, if you want to adopt a strategy that gives you a chance of accumulating a lot of chips early, then you have to be prepared for the risk of losing lots of chips early too.

If you gamble early, you can then build up a large stack with which you can bully with - and one thing you don"t want a loose aggressive player at your table to have is a big stack.

It"s also worth remembering that a big stack early on puts you in a good position, it doesn"t guarantee you anything.  You need to have gears and know when to slow down a bit too.  Winning chips later on in a tourney is far more important than winning chips early.  Not losing chips early is very important (but of course you don"t just want to sit there in your shell waiting for a monster that never comes).

If you"re looking to try and build a big stack early you want to take risks - but calculated ones.  First of all, you want to get in cheap and you don"t want to be laying down hands pre-flop to a re-raiser - so best to avoid those situations and follow the advice Swinebag posted to avoid marginal hands in early position.  Suited connectors can be beautiful if you hit the board hard.  Also you could look to make some very trappy plays with big hands (but also be aware you can get yourself into trouble - risk/reward again).

Then there"s the "Scandie" way.  Brutally aggressive from any position.  Leading out with all sorts of hands, and continuation betting on the flop (which of course will miss your opponent most of the time).  This strategy his uber-risky, but can be a hugely successful way of accumulating a large stack early. 

(that"s just my thoughts - I"d appreciate to be corrected where I"m talking nonsense)

[jacklevel06]

I find getting chips early quite easy,small raise"s into an un-raised pot usually works followed by a continuation bet aginst maybe 1 or 2 callers.The over bet tends to work a lot as well against limpers.My problem is once i"ve got these chips i seem to get stuck in hyper aggresive mode for as long as i last in the tournament.I dont seem to know when to slow down.

[waltypies]

in PP mag one guy reccommends the following (correct me if I"m wrong)

forget playing marginal hands early position (Aj, Kq, Aq)

call any raise (but not a reraise) in late position with any 2 (I assume with a view to taking the pot on later streets)

I tried it and busted out early, but then again so do Vaswani and De Wolfe regularly, it just doesn"t get reported as much. Those players do tend to either bust early or go deep.

Great Vegas updates btw

Good points raised here!

I love taking chips early in tournaments as it gives me the option then to slow down a bit or hit 6th gear!

If you gamble early and bust there is plenty of money to be made at the cash tables!  However if you do get chips your pretty certain to go deep.

I would rather approach a bubble with a nice stack instead of being shortstacked around the bubble and in danger of playing for so long and not cashing.  Not a very good £/phr rate if you ask me! LOL

[Geo]

As has been pointed out, if you want to adopt a strategy that gives you a chance of accumulating a lot of chips early, then you have to be prepared for the risk of losing lots of chips early too.

If you gamble early, you can then build up a large stack with which you can bully with - and one thing you don"t want a loose aggressive player at your table to have is a big stack.

It"s also worth remembering that a big stack early on puts you in a good position, it doesn"t guarantee you anything.  You need to have gears and know when to slow down a bit too.  Winning chips later on in a tourney is far more important than winning chips early.  Not losing chips early is very important (but of course you don"t just want to sit there in your shell waiting for a monster that never comes).

If you"re looking to try and build a big stack early you want to take risks - but calculated ones.  First of all, you want to get in cheap and you don"t want to be laying down hands pre-flop to a re-raiser - so best to avoid those situations and follow the advice Swinebag posted to avoid marginal hands in early position.  Suited connectors can be beautiful if you hit the board hard.  Also you could look to make some very trappy plays with big hands (but also be aware you can get yourself into trouble - risk/reward again).

Then there"s the "Scandie" way.  Brutally aggressive from any position.  Leading out with all sorts of hands, and continuation betting on the flop (which of course will miss your opponent most of the time).  This strategy his uber-risky, but can be a hugely successful way of accumulating a large stack early. 

(that"s just my thoughts - I"d appreciate to be corrected where I"m talking nonsense)

Thought this was a very good post Dan. a lot of things to think about there.

thanks
Geo

[UKChamp]

As has been pointed out, if you want to adopt a strategy that gives you a chance of accumulating a lot of chips early, then you have to be prepared for the risk of losing lots of chips early too.

If you gamble early, you can then build up a large stack with which you can bully with - and one thing you don"t want a loose aggressive player at your table to have is a big stack.

=====================

Thats precisley what im after!

If im not chip leader I want to be on the table with him, especially if LAG, the more chisp they have the more open they will be to allowing me to double through.

All too often chip stacks are feared and players shut down, a clear counter punching strategy is all thats required. The great skill of a chip leader is chipping away but cutting losses when people play back, however I find people are worse at playing large stacks than tight/average middle stacks and this pays us all off!

The last thing i want is average/short stacsk at the table.
======================

[kinboshi]

As has been pointed out, if you want to adopt a strategy that gives you a chance of accumulating a lot of chips early, then you have to be prepared for the risk of losing lots of chips early too.

If you gamble early, you can then build up a large stack with which you can bully with - and one thing you don"t want a loose aggressive player at your table to have is a big stack.

=====================

Thats precisley what im after!

If im not chip leader I want to be on the table with him, especially if LAG, the more chisp they have the more open they will be to allowing me to double through.

All too often chip stacks are feared and players shut down, a clear counter punching strategy is all thats required. The great skill of a chip leader is chipping away but cutting losses when people play back, however I find people are worse at playing large stacks than tight/average middle stacks and this pays us all off!

The last thing i want is average/short stacsk at the table.
======================

I"d prefer a tight player to have the big stack rather than a hyper-aggressive player.  You"re going to be put to the test more often, and are going to have to risk your tournament if you"re going up against them - which you don"t want to be doing early doors ideally.  Of course, if you"re lucky to hit a monster, you know he"s got you covered and you can be sure of doubling up if your hand holds.

The big chip stack won"t go out of the tournament on a race or a "bad beat", but you can certainly go out to him.  With a tight player, you know where you stand (most of the time), against a LAG, you"re going to be put to the test more often than not, and you also lose out on opportunities to steal from other players as well.

Of course, it depends a lot on your relative position to them as well.

Talking of position, chip stacks and LAGs - I had a big problem with one in Copenhagen.  Day2, and I have a hyper-aggressive player (called Simon Mycock amusingly) to my immediate right.  He"s the table chip-leader, and not far off being tournament chip leader.

Anyway, although the common thinking is to want to have the loose players to your right, and tighter players to your left, it was a right pain having him sitting there.  He was raising and re-raising a lot of pots, and as I was getting short-stacked and the blinds were going up, I knew I had to get busy.  But it was difficult for me to find a spot.  Annoyingly, if it was folded round to him in the SB, he"s push all-in automatically.  He knew that I"d need a very good hand to call him with - as it"s my tournament life on the line if I call.  Even if I call and I"m ahead, without a monster pocket pair I"m only going to be a slight favourite.  He knew that he could steal my BB enough times to make sure that if I did eventually call him and he lost the hand, that he"d have taken enough from me to cover that.

Anyway, it all came to a head when he shoved, and I looked down at  ac kc, calling against his .  65% favourite, but it wasn"t to be. 

In that situation I was stuck between a rock and a hard place (and I"m not talking a rock in the poker sense).  With plenty of LAGs at the table, opportunities to steal with my short-stack were limited.  I"d managed to steal as much as I could, doubled-up a few times, but still needed more chips if I was to play any poker that didn"t involve a shove.  I"d have definitely wanted Mycock to be on the other side of the table on that day.  Would have made a big difference to me.

[nosey-p]

This game is full of opinions, there is no right or wrong way on how to play it, that's why we all love the game  

[MJS]

I can sympathise with you Dan.  Apart from horrible bad beats, I think the worst feeling in poker is being short stacked and not being able to get your chips in first so you get blinded away...

[UKChamp]

I see your point of view Dan and i guess thats the point, we all have an opinion.  My views have changed as my game has over the years and I find myself much looser at the start of MTT, I look to either get a big stack or go early. I dont want to mess around being chased by the blind structure. 

As for your tale of misfortune, its a harsh one, especially given the stage - youd hope for luck to fall on your side.  After all nobody wants to be sucked out by mycock!!!

[MJS]

For those people who do like to play looser at the beginning of a tourney, and I guess I"m one of them, does this also reduce your calling requirements early on?

Getting chips early is something that more and more players are striving for, which will inevitably cause more people to take early gambles.  Does this result in us having to re-think the hands we could call an all in with like we have to, to a greater degree, when the number of players at a table reduces?

I guess the answer to this is very subjective and depends almost entirely on the read you have on your opponents, the situation, and what you think they are capable of...

[Swinebag]

I think calling allin requirements must still be very strict no matter how loose you are playing

Calling a raise, however, if you are playing loose, when in late position, could be any 2.

There you go.......free advice

"go allin against swinebag and he will fold"