You have a gun to your head and you absolutely must mincash your next tournament, what is your strategy?

Uhh nothing notable changes in my game besides the flips I take. Restricting my range to basically AKs/10s+ for 3bet shove range. If/when I double up basically folding my way into the money unless I get AA.

I tried that out yesterday and it worked pretty well, mincashed 3 out of 4 tournaments, including one deep-ish run where I folded my 10bb stack to the final two tables.

For context, though the original question is interesting on its own, I'm playing a fake money tournament series where each cash gets a certain number of points, and the top 10 overall points at the end of two weeks get some merch or whatever. Mostly just doing it for fun as a personal challenge.

After looking at the point calculation formula a bit, it seems that mincashes are disproportionately rewarded compared to deep runs. Obviously deep runs get way more points, but it's an extremely flat ladder compared to the actual payout structures. The numbers change a bit depending on the size of the player pool and buyin cost, but typically a first place finish will only net less than 5% of the total points rewarded, about 4.5x more than a mincash. There's pretty much every variety of format along the way, freezes, rebuys, PKOs, you name it, but points rewarded ONLY depends on your finish position wrt the size of the player pool, and you must cash (top 15%) to receive any points. The graph looks roughly like this, where X is the % of players beaten.

So yesterday I basically pretended that I had ICM pressure from the very start of the tournament, playing hella slowly, only picking +pointEV spots rather than chasing chipEV, and generally tightening my flipping range as you suggested (I felt a piece of my soul leave my body folding 9s in no-brainer shove spots twice yesterday). Idk if that's way too early to start doing that, but this video suggests that switching to ICM solutions very early in a tourney gets you a lot of extra profit in the min-midcash range, so it feels valid here. Plus I'm an enormous fish, so playing less hands only gives me less opportunities to punt it off heh. The fact that it's a fake-money tournament also means a lot more maniacs are showing up, so tightening up also helps avoid marginal spots with them.

Wondering if it's worth going for max latereg to start closer to the bubble, or max earlyreg to have more opportunities to pick up premiums and win some medium pots to build up a foldable stack?

Ugh I would avoid mtts if I’m looking to mincash as a happy event. Hmm if I’m playing to at least min cash- I wouldn’t worry too much in early levels bc so far away. If I have a big stack more close to bubble- I’m tightening up a lot and avoiding players that will 3! Light.

Hmm not going to take those semi thin sb shoves I’ll normally take and play a more limp strat from sb Vs bb spots. Hmm, I’m not going to include my 3! Fold type spots if I’m looking to mincash. Only 3! For value honestly.

Hmm also tighten up range for AI spots.

Read a book on satellite strategy. Dara O Kearny has the best one.

Book was a great help, thanks for the rec. Should've thought about searching for satellite strategy materials, the mindset is very relevant here. I've mincashed at about a 60% rate, and the regs in the series are starting to hate me, both good signs!

I am a really good satellite player, but play mainly for the top 5 places in a cash tournament. That is where most of the money is.

Yes, but OP suggested he is playing in a series where the main goal is min cashing, so this is not correct.

There is always ICM in tournies so playing like it from the start is what you should do. Just replying to your post above.
It goes something like this. There is a lot of ICM pressure when close to the bubble, after the bubble pops it drops to lowish again and increasing closer you get to the final table.
Not sure about folding 9s tho but yea don't know much about satellite strategy.
Also when a lot of ICM your betsizes postflop get smaller a lot of half potting.