Is there any "material" out there concerning risk-taking (i.e. playing large pots and flips vs cautious small-ball) at different stages of a tournament?

Does the answer depend on other players tendencies?

Question is inspired by the fact that local tournaments play extremely passive with people shying away from flips at 10bb.

Another inspiration was a recent blackjack jackpot tournament where the buy-in was $10 for 1k chips and the top three payouts were 1k-2k. Strangely enough, 1 hour before the end, the top scores were only at 18k 13k 12k, so that a simple double-up strat was massive +EV... Never mind. Just another example of how extremely stupid the average player is...

You might want to try "Poker Tournament Formula" by Arnold Snyder. Its pretty old now (maybe came out in 2005) and has some questionable ideas (like betting for information), but with regards to chip utility and tournament structures I found it very helpful.

I try to chip up early in tourneys, so I am willing to take chances, play large pots in position early in tournaments. Especially when I can buy back in.

What you mention late in tourneys, especially when the average chipstack is small, makes it hugely advantageous to shove first in vs stacks <15 BB'ds and/or when I have < 15 BBs. Last weekend at FW near the bubble I shoved 5 or 6 times and had AJs fold, AQ fold (i had 10 BB's and he had 40 BBs), and a few other hands I never saw. Needless to say I was way behind both times.

I think the answer is more about relative stack sizes than player tendencies. Players whose stack you can't dent tend to call more frequently.

The question doesn't make much sense because you should never be looking to take -ev plays at any stage of the game. Obviously as people at your table get more risk adverse, it becomes more +ev to open a wider range. But you should look at ICM, because the chips you acquire become less valuable around bubbles/ladders, so naturally you'll want to take less marginal cEV spots because they are -$ev.

Google ‘gap theory poker’

this forum is pretty close to dead, i guess

The more skilled you think you are, the fewer "marginal" spots preflop you should be willing to take

Chips lost are generally more valuable than chips won.

Your question didn't get many replies because this is fundamental stuff that's been discussed ad infinitum, and it's been asked literally hundreds of times. It's also way too broad. What do you mean "risk-taking at different stages"? Please identify specific straetgy adjustments you're considering, not just "big pots vs small ball", that's not informative and those terms are closer to philosophies than strategies.

Passive live donks pass up good spots because they're scared and bad. But for your own good you shouldn't consider them "stupid". If they're bad we need them in the poker economy and callng them stupid drives them away. Not to mention, no one is ever as good as they think they are, even "bad" players will own you once in a while. Have some humility.

Of course things depend on opp's tendencies. When do they not matter?

It also depends on what your goal is in the tournament. Do you want to make the money with fair certainty or do you want a shot at winning at the risk of exiting early?

You can look at it this way: There are competent players who play wild and competent players who play risk averse. The wild players will either
a) bust out immediately
or
b) chip up hugely
in the early part of the tournament

The risk-averse, solid players will (assuming fairly long levels) chip up slowly and steadily - barring some cold deck incident*

Which will mean that by the middle to later stages of the tournament a solid player will have a good chance of making the money but a slim chance of winning the tournament against any of the - by then - huge stacks (if the big stacks aren't pure bingo players, that is, but know when to taper off the hyper-aggression)

*(the incompetent players will bust out. The longer the game lasts the more certain this is. Even if they get "bingo-lucky" in a few hands. Saw it just last week. Just before the money this guy with a huge stack was winning left and right, hitting lucky all the time. It was sickening to watch. 20 minutes later he was gone. Completely unnecessarily spewed his chips thinking he was unbeatable.)

I also think it's absurd to ever use the term "risk averse" in the context of poker.

Playing nitty vs playing LAG is not the same as, say, the difference between buying a US. Govt bond or sticking your money in a savings account vs buying stocks.

This forum isn’t dead it’s just a dumb question tbh.
Trying to play risk averse poker is lol the whole game is risk.

It's calculated risk.
In a tournament the risk calculation is just different.
RoR and ICM play a part, where in a cash games only +-EV decisions matter.

There is not much material on meta game, but what I have found is that Meta game between Poker is very similar to golf tournaments, and track (marathons mainly). There might be more material on the meta game of those competitions than there is on Poker MTTs.

FWIW i think your post mentioned low stakes live MTTs. For these tournies the meta game strat is fairly easy. Basically it's just nut pedaling and applying basic fundamental concepts. Hard to explain really if I don't know your skill level but if you want to know more feel free to PM me with any questions.

More alive than ever

Don't be that biased

I mean:

Do not judge the quality of a forum by the yardstick of answers that only one of your posts gets

Thx for trying to answer this broad (aka stupid) question.
Basically, I was trying to move one or two levels beyond ICM.
Level 0 is playing more aggressive as the big stack and risk averse as the medium or small stack, etc. as the bubble approaches and maybe also ITM ( but here highly depending on structure again)
Level 1 might then be to try get a big stack and avoid pebbling a short stack...
I am pretty sure there is a formula to be found taking the tournament structure and current stack and giving an aggression factor as the output...

This aggression factor determines e.g. whether you want to limp the SB vs making it 3-4x. It also scales your opening ranges...

In the blackjack example the aggression factor is obviously max. In a satellite, the aggression factor gets zero for certain stacks and situations...

Thread proly belongs in 'poker theory' but here goes:

I think this is largely a GTO vs Exploitable question, ie: if you are playing rock,paper, scissors and your opponent is 100% always throwing rock then you should play 'exploitable' by always throwing paper. If he throwing close to a 100% randomised strategy (GTO) then your best course of action is to also randomize as close as you can to 100%. (100% randomised strategy is optimal in rock,paper scissors because it cannot be exploited).

So whether you are playing GTO or exploitable will determine if your strategy is 'risk taking' or ' risk aversion' saying one is better than the other is a somewhat moot point because it depend on how everyone else is playing

Here's the optimal strategy in this case:
EV is the same but your RoR is way lower

First you ask a question where the only answer is "Obviously. Duh.There is endless content out there regarding every aspect of poker."

Then you ask a question where the only answer is "Maybe, maybe not, it depends."

Then you get all snippy when you don't get yes or no answers. LOL.