Tournament Play Any Buy In Amount!

I cant seem to get myself going on these tournaments. I always seem to bust out before money or even make it to money a couple brackets in. What I've noticed is that when I make it to money it seems like I forced myself in there where I would go all in and hope that the hole cards I carry hit. I dont like playing that way cause that's just gambling with your stack. Otherwise I stay average or below average with my stack. I've noticed there are a few people here that make it constantly to the higher brackets in tournaments in free roll or money games. I cant seem to do that. Any help or ideas?

there are a lot of things you would need to look at
it takes time to learn but you need to be agressive at the right times with the right hands and you need to fold at the right times

learning when to fold is the hardest thing to learn in poker

try and analyse your play when your playing - ie. after you lose a hand think to yourself, why did i lose that hand? Did you go to the river with trash - were you just unlucky and caught a bad beat, are you calling raises cold with marginal hands you really should be dropping?

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Texas Holdem Resources : Hand Rankings Terminology Pre Flop Odds Odds Chart
Poker Odds Calculator - Find out if you were right to make that call!

If your playing on some of the main sits you can request your hand histories, these are great for anaylising your play, there is also a program called poker tracker. Poker Tracker is a Windows based computer program that allows you to analyze your on-line Texas Hold'Em play. Poker Tracker stores and summarizes hand history data that can be downloaded from your poker site. http://www.pokertracker.com

Additionally your pre-flop selection is a crucial aspect of your game, if you are new i recommend downloading and purchasing a odds calculator good ones include

Poker Pal Pro v5
http://shareware.qed-online.com/files/PPAL.EXE

These will show you your pre-flop chances of winning and also your chances after the flop, turn and river. It will also work out your pot odds for you and can be configured to your style of play, e.g loose - tight or a bit of both. If you are going out early i recommend tightening your game up a bit, only try and play Big Group 1 hands, like AA,KK,QQ,AK.

Keep at it... if you play a 'tight-aggressive' style and learn to fold when you think you're likely to be beat as is being recommended above, you'll find that it's usually not too difficult to 'get to the money'. That's step one for the tourneys... Step II (which I'm still working on) is getting DEEP into the money, to the final table or two tables.

Most likely, at present, you're playing too many hands and calling with weakish hands.

A good rule of thumb... if you have a hand that you're not going to be able to be aggressive with after you catch it, the hand is probably too weak to play often.

Typical hands that look strong and people play a lot but which don't really allow you to be aggressive... Ax-offsuit (x is anything less than J), K10, K9, Q10, Q9, Q8. You'll see a lot of people play these and occasionally they'll get lucky, but you won't see good players play them much unless they're in BB or on the button.

i agree with fonzerelli, all the skill in the world is useless if you dont know how to fold. one of my biggest problems is learning to fold with TPTK, i've lost over $100 the past few weeks just to losing to rag two pair with TPTK