First, would you agree that in a tournament you are trying to build your stack as much as possible, while also protecting your stack to the best of your abilities?

Lets say you're in a tournament, starting stack 15k, blinds are at 100-200 with 25 ante.

Let's also say the deck is hitting you in the face. Lets pretend that we know that we will keep running hot throughout the tournament.

My question is-Is the proper strategy to win your hands preflop? If you are taking 500-1k per hand, and playing most hands, I'd think this would be the proper way to play. Seeing flops/turns/rivers have the potential of larger pots, but it also introduces variance where you don't have it pf.

If you disagree, I'd love to hear your take on it.

(I did present this in another thread a while back, but I feel the significant difference is the theoretical knowledge of running great the entire tournament)

if you feel like you have a skill advantage (or knowing you will run great the entire tournament) than you should try to avoid tough high variance decisions. '

My question is-Is the proper strategy to win your hands preflop? No, you should try to win the biggest pot possible, which might mean playing the river.

I'm not sure how you can expect to win PF or OTF unless you are raising way too much that only premium hands will call your bets. if the deck is hitting you in the face You'll want to maximize value from worse hands (not hope to win PF or with a cbet). I think a small ball betting approach is a better way to avoid variance. Yes, you'll get a lot of calls PF and will have to double/triple barrel but the pots will be smaller.

I don't think variance matters much. Just don't put a lot of money in on garbage preflop early on.

In early position I generally only play 99+ or AJ+ (limping everything and deciding whether to shove or fold to a raise) This strategy is unorthodox and people hate it but it seems to be better than trying to outplay a bunch of maniacs for me. It just becomes rather silly to raise have five people call and then have to fold when I inevitably miss. Yeah, you can raise and stuff to try to steal blinds but don't overdo it.

People will disagree but I just don't see the value in playing too many hands early on.

The best tournament strategy would be an adaptive one.

Believing in a single strategy for all situations is highly exploitable unless your very short stacked.

I just take whatever action I think will give me the best chance of finishing in first place.

I appreciate your comments.....

If you take it down 80% of the time PF, then you're increasing your stack at a reasonable pace.

I feel like getting to the flop and past it you'll easily get in an all-in situation and even though you might be ahead, they'll luckbox you on the river. This may happen a small percentage of the time, but over the course of a long tournament, it's bound to happen to you at least once which in turn is your tournament life.

Inch by inch life is a cinch? Yard by yard life is very hard?

A number of fairly lengthy books have explained NLHE tournament strategy. It takes more than a forum post.

A good tournament strategy is volume!How many times ive been deep like 2 tables left and got busted by a worst hand i cannot even count!You have to play till your cards hold up especialy in those low limit tournaments where the structure is so poor late stages os almost always push or fold!Good players know that.Get lucky and practise nashes equilibrium of poker

Yeah, why does a DISCUSSION FORUM even exist on POKER THEORY?

D-bag