The idea that we need to play with the fish while they are still in the pond has really started to sink in more deeply over the past few weeks of semi-serious grinding. I see regs do things vs fish/ take lines that I myself see through as being fishy. I know that its just a function of them knowing that player A has no idea whats going on + is likely passive/ plays straightforward post-flop , and that they can run them over.

The thing is, I feel as though I play a pretty solid TAG style, with a few moves mixed in; but I far too often find myself with a stack in the middling stages of an mtt that is almost always larger than the initial starting stack, but is too short/ susceptible to being @ the mercy of variance.

I have started to experiment more with floating certain players + double barreling more in spots where I know the villain is very sticky with marginal holdings. I also have started to lead out in 3bet pots/ pots where I called in the BB with a decent price. I know that its tough to make hands, and that I NEED to fight more for pots to enable myself to withstand losing a flip or two late.

I know that what I have outlined is perhaps vague, but if anyone has content that they feel could be applicable/ helpful to me hmu. My push/fold ranges are pretty refined, as well as my ICM decisions. I really feel as though I get my $$$ in very good a vast majority of the time, and that I do not spew chips by opening too wide/ calling oop etc. As the title states, I am just not finding enough chips early on.

While it's true that players get better as the tournament goes along, there's a lot of randomness so the effect is not huge. There are countervailing forces as well. Players can get fatigued or bored, or play more carelessly when their stacks get big. ICM considerations mean that if A makes it to the next level twice as often with half the stack of B, A will win more money.

I think a bigger consideration is that playing aggressively at all stages of the tournament helps you win. Say you need four stack doublings to make it to the bubble, you should think about what the best opportunities for doublings are. Just trying to survive and hoping to sneak into the bubble with a short stack rarely wins.

So I think you're probably right that you need to fight more early, but fight for chips, not to fry fish.

^^ I agree wholeheartedly. Another thing is that I need to find ways to win more chips without SDs. I feel as though I am a decent hand reader, but perhaps I am not nearly as good as I think. Whilst I do not currently have a hud/database, intuitively I know that i do better as a whole when I win a larger % of my chips w/o going to SD. I tend to take more conservative lines IP, and often check back a lot of turns hoping to induce bluffs/ make my hand appear weaker than it really is. I generally tend to 3barrel in very polarizing spots... ie I have the nuts or I am bluffing/semi-bluffing. I guess perhaps this is why I do not get enough chips often enough??? Because I tend to small-ball it??? Idk.... I made another deepish run tonight in one of my mtts, but even then I 3bet jamemd a 20bb stack SB vs Bttn with A8<99. With antes + blinds I felt it was a good shove, especially since the villain was opening a fair amount of buttons into the SB who was/had been sub 10bbs for quite a while. Either way, I was 30/70 in a spot that I deemed to be good... I ran into pretty much the tops of his range and with a flat payout structure going forward I do not regret the decision. So, its not as though I am too nitty. I guess I will just have to keep throwing in different lines/ moves and find ways to accumulate chips on the fly. I appreciate your post though Aaron brown

In the book Kill Everyone, which is widely regarded as being one of, if not the, best book on MTT´S, there is a chapter titled "Specific guidelines for accumulating chips".

Thanks man... I will check it out.

I think the main trick is to avoid drawing dead. If you get a situation in which you're 100% sure you have at least 25% equity, that can be a good place to shove. You get a lot of fold equity, and sometimes when you're called you have +EV, and sometimes you have the worst of it but get lucky. You're not going to win without getting lucky, so it's not a leak to assume some luck.

What kills your chances is large bets when your equity is 15% or less. You just can't afford these in tournaments. You have to get away from some hands in which you're probably 55%, because you might be 5%.

You often see top players win tournaments drawing from behind, but if you look carefully, these are almost always 30% shots, not runner-runner gutshot straights.

The necessity to build stacks before blinds and antes go up is what makes tournament player different from cash game. A lot of the cash game consists of trying to decide if you're 45% or 55%. Tournaments are more about figuring your worst case and if it's not too terrible, acting like you've got nuts.

oh

LOL, every time I start to think we are going to disagree on something, you turn it around, following with what I believe to be the correct dissenting opinion.

I think that ICM considerations vs skill edges are the main point here. Early on, the effects of ICM are at the lowest point, while exploitative skill edges over the softer players will generally be at it's highest. However it's much more involved than that.

As you approach the bubble, ICM will simply handcuff you into making the correct decision when you are covered and at risk.

Why, this is so is that while risk/reward or CEV/$EV is severely skewed for both players involved in a hand near the bubble and therefore net -$EV for both players if taking a showdown, the shorter stack will clearly be far more at risk so big stacks can simply bully shorter stacks. "Bully" is a very accurate term since, in a fight both can get hurt but clearly the weaker fighter will be getting the worst of it so their stronger need to avoid conflict is leveraged.

How the only two players in a hand can be net -$EV is that, while they are still net positive CEV due to blinds/antes, or zero sum by orbit, the $ is still in the prize pool therefore the net $ loss is distributed to the rest of the field.

This is why it's important to be the bigger stack in these situations and why chip accumulation before the bubble can actually be, overall, more +$EV for the individual player taking slightly more risks even if each individual risk itself, might be increasingly slightly net lower $EV at each level. I admit, it's a confusing area and took me some time to fully grasp myself.

This is why aggression is rewarded so much more in tournament situations. It's important to note that this aggression is rewarded only as far as your opponents understand ICM since bullying players who are going to make ICM mistakes is a mistake in itself.

While it's not directly answering the OP, I think that applying the concepts of chip accumulation is jumping the gun unless you can understand this ICM concept more fully.

Understanding when and against whom becomes an increasingly larger component over just the how alone at each level.

Thanks for the responses so far. I have been playing sng's the past 10+ weeks, although I have been kinda lazy tbh. My goal is to take some OPS shots and try to bink some scores on Carbon/Merge, or if they don't go all that well I will stick with sngs until I can get to $2,000+. After I get over 2k, I will start playing more mtts with an abi of like $13ish. There just isn't enough volume @ the micros, and most of the games there have terrible structures and guarantees. I know that my NLHE game needs work still, but I also know that I am more than capable of beating the < $33s. My lack of sucess in mtts so far is mainly a function of a lack of volume. I appreciate and welcome more discussion though

Reading your original post I thought I had posted it. This is what I have found from my experience. I do not propose that my experience is of any value at all just thought I would mention it. I played a lot of online MTT's and sitngo's when they were legal in the U.S. I also played quite a few MTT's in Casino's before I basically lost interest though I still play the WSOP Seniors and some other small tourneys. Yes, I am a senior, senior. So what?
I thought that I had a problem with my game even though I cashed a lot and showed a profit in my tournament play. I felt like I should have won more often and like you always found myself with less chips in the middle of a tourney than I felt I needed at that point.

To make a long story short I'll skip a lot of stuff. Bottom line is that I decided to try different things to increase my chip stack during the early and middle stages of a tournament. Some of the very things that you mention that you are trying. After trying these things that were not part of my game I found myself increasingly frustrated, mad and disgusted with tournaments.

Bottom line (for me). First and foremost is that I came to the realization that trying anything new is a time consuming effort that must be thought out thoroughly with sound reasoning and proven results specifically focusing on the details or it is just a waste of time. Especially in poker where the long run is something one person may never encounter. Also, being comfortable in your game is the most important element of playing winning poker in both cash and tournament play. So I have returned to what made me a winning player in the first place. I will continue to read and question things but will not change my game unless I do the same research and evaluating that I did when I learned to play poker in the early 90's. I read everything Sklansky and Malmuth and a few others wrote. Dissected it and convinced myself it was logically correct before incorporating it into my game. I also had the benefit of have a personal relationship with Sklansky, Malmuth, Greg Raymer and some other top notch players and theorists. Now, to me, poker whether it is a tournament or cash is a game. A game in which edge's matter if you want to win. You look for an edge, given that you know one when you see it, and you exploit that edge. That means having a solid game and playing the player. From your post you appear to understand the game well. Good luck.

Reading your original post I thought I had posted it. This is what I have found from my experience. I do not propose that my experience is of any value at all just thought I would mention it. I played a lot of online MTT's and sitngo's when they were legal in the U.S. I also played quite a few MTT's in Casino's before I basically lost interest though I still play the WSOP Seniors and some other small tourneys. Yes, I am a senior, senior. So what?
I thought that I had a problem with my game even though I cashed a lot and showed a profit in my tournament play. I felt like I should have won more often and like you always found myself with less chips in the middle of a tourney than I felt I needed at that point.

To make a long story short I'll skip a lot of stuff. Bottom line is that I decided to try different things to increase my chip stack during the early and middle stages of a tournament. Some of the very things that you mention that you are trying. After trying these things that were not part of my game I found myself increasingly frustrated, mad and disgusted with tournaments.

Bottom line (for me). First and foremost is that I came to the realization that trying anything new is a time consuming effort that must be thought out thoroughly with sound reasoning and proven results specifically focusing on the details or it is just a waste of time. Especially in poker where the long run is something one person may never encounter. Also, being comfortable in your game is the most important element of playing winning poker in both cash and tournament play. So I have returned to what made me a winning player in the first place. I will continue to read and question things but will not change my game unless I do the same research and evaluating that I did when I learned to play poker in the early 90's. I read everything Sklansky and Malmuth and a few others wrote. Dissected it and convinced myself it was logically correct before incorporating it into my game. I also had the benefit of have a personal relationship with Sklansky, Malmuth, Greg Raymer and some other top notch players and theorists. Now, to me, poker whether it is a tournament or cash is a game. A game in which edge's matter if you want to win. You look for an edge, given that you know one when you see it, and you exploit that edge. That means having a solid game and playing the player. From your post you appear to understand the game well. Good luck.