I have often found myself building up a very big stack early and mid stages of an online tournament. I do this not by playing super LAG or maniac, I just seem to find spots to get my chips in good and get paid off. I then often find myself spewing the chips I've amassed.

Example, yesterday I was playing a tournament and at one point the blinds were 1000/2000 and I had 200bbs. We are now in the mid stages near the money and there's absolutely no reason for me to not make it into the money, but recently I've noticed that I get caught up in trying to stay aggressive when I don't need to be and have punted many a large stacks away.

I don't mean to say I'm playing a maniac style, but I am a bit on the aggro side and while this is good in general is there an optimal time when I should just lay really low and cruise into the money with what will most likely be a healthy stack even if I do start folding a lot? Or should I keep on with the aggression in order to gain an even bigger stack? I'm not one to lay low with a big stack, but the more this happens to me the more I'm thinking that there must be some threshold of when I can lay low and cruise into the money.

Thanks for your replies!

In most tournaments the prizes heavily favor the top 1-3 spots so you should always be aiming for those and avoid cruising into the money.

Accumulating a big stack gives you the best chance to reach those top spots by allowing you to aggressively put pressure on medium and smaller stacks that you can threaten for their tournament life. Vs stacks that can knock you out or cripple you you will want play more cautiously, but you should always maintain a reasonable level of aggression throughout the tournament to amass chips to win the top 1-3 spots.

Also the cruising mentality can affect you psychologically in a bad way where you are going deep but never finishing at the top for the biggest payouts because you stop amassing chips.

Finally as the number of participants in the field grows you will find that luck is a much larger factor in your tournament runs.

Hi onehandatatime,

some additional thoughts to consider might be to better understand what is actually happening. You are collecting spew from weak "donkament" players early in the tournament. Later in the tournament, there are less donkament players left as a ratio of your opponents, and also some of the donkament players get a little less spewy once they make it deeper into tournaments also. So large value bets are less likely to be called by weaker hands, you are more likely to be bluffed more correctly and less obviously, there will be more raises and less calls, statistically speaking. Just make sure that you are not changing your style when you have a big stack near the money. If good poker allowed you to easily collect spew, then good poker will also allow you to not give it away incorrectly. As just_grindin pointed out, there are also proven methods of profitably interacting with different stack sizes when you are near the bubble, and finally there are ICM considerations when you are deep in the money as to what situations you are willing to risk your tournament life on.

-Rob

OP what's your solution? I have similar issues where I become too tight in late stages and eventually not giving myself a chance to make top 3 finishes. ( Not that I must win every time but I'd like to learn how to take advantage when opportunity is presented).

Only time you should be slowing down is for icm reasons or the stack / table dynamics deem it so. Generally speaking you should keep your foot on the gas right from the start to the end of the tourny.

Try to to play a more controlled lag style this will make you more selective and pick spots better

I try to play a controlled lag style, however, this does cause me to get into some sticky situations where I feel I need to be the aggressor in a marginal spot. I really think it's to try to avoid those marginal spots and perhaps fold a bit more either pre or post.