why play to be a mid tournament small stack?

There are no advantages in being a small stack with a table full of monsters..everywhere you turn...MONSTER...and all they want is to eat you alive...you put up your dukes to fight...ha, they lift up their leg and squash you with their foot....hell you die from fright more times than you die from battle. No thanks that's not for me, I just tried it and I don't like it, I will leave it all for you every time! You can say "I'm going to climb this sand dune as an ant, you go ahead with your dune buggy and we will see who gets up the dune first" No thanks, I'll take my chances with the dune buggy.

Now you might be saying to youself "WTF is he talking about - nobody chooses to be a mid-tourney small stack"....sure you do...when the playing field was level you decided to hide behind the bushes instead of do or die fighting, you had an equal chance then, but you said no, the only way that I will fight him is to climb in a tree and surprise him by jumping on him, if he happens to walk by....the problem is that he always chooses a different route or there is no tree for you to climb.

With this attitude, you will survive longer in tournaments - but you will never win a tournament!

As one who has won tournaments by not playing fast and loose, I am not sure what your point is. 1999 was the largest number to bite the dust and at the other end of the scale SnGs are my bread and butter. So this fits in with your observation how?

I think you both have valid points. Maybe a mixture of the two is possible? A RacingShoot and CrapDog would probably do very well on the whole I think.

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I think that most expierenced players know that there is a point in a MTT when you know you need to double-up. Waiting too long to do so is counterproductive so you should try and make a move and take a chance with A rag or QJ or 78. Even if you win your probably still the short stack, but you have gained a bit of extra time to possibly catch a real hand to double up with again. But play smart under the circumstance. There are many times I can remember being a short stack with 18 players left and going on to finish in the top 3. I agree that playing safe is not the way to play winning poker, but don't play foolish. I've also seen huge stacks lose it all by playing too many hands when they could cruise into the final 3.

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No More Free Rides!
No Room For Dead Beats!

I second this!! There is a middle.

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Real poker players don't cry....

The FLOP determines how good your hole cards are!!

visit me at http://www.myspace.com/tzucanow

I think there are many different ways to play poker and that one strategy is no better than another, it is simply different. Its like arguing over which super model is the most attrctive. You have personel tastes and prefrences, but at the end of the day, they're all sexy!

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G.T.S
***...KidJoker666...***

I like ShootRacing and DogCrap better....btw no offense meant to either player

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2007 THFSOP LIMIT HOLD' EM CHAMPION

Well by no means am I talking loose as a goose...all I'm saying is that when the playing field is level at the right times you have to fight..you also have to hone your skills to add the chips where you can...you can't just sit around waiting for AA or KK or nut hands...you have to battle, because mid tournament if you only have your starting chips minus all the blinds that were taken away, you are in a world of hurt. It means nothing to everyone around you that has 8 to 10 fold your chips and you wait for pocket AA's...they are not afraid of losing your chump change and you will have 3 or 4 callers to your all-in which drops your hold on the pot drastically, not to mention that you might never see AA. You do have to worry about keeping up with the Joneses in the first hour or two.

Like the cross names, tee hee.

Hey Crapshoot, I mentioned this on another thread, but playing tight does not mean waiting for premier hands (well it shouldn't). But even so you can appear to be doing that just because you get a mixture of no hands, not even marginals, and when you do get a marginal, someone has already made a big raise which rules out the marginal. But that's just life, some days are crap.

And big stacks are not that much of a problem. Many of them are just people who got lucky and will eventually blow it because they ain't good enough to keep them. Not everyone has the savvy to bully with a big stack. And the bullies are just reliable double ups. Many bullies bet differently when bullying to when they have the nuts, so you just call and hope when you spot the bullying pattern. In any case, every player apart from the table leader can go out in one hand so there should be less psychological difference than people think as 9 people out of 10 will be faced with taking on the leader's all in sooner or later, so you are making the same dangerous call whether you have 5% or 95% of the table leader's stack.

One more thing I've said before. Try going back to the tourney results, even when you busted early. How many of the early leaders cashed big, or even cashed at all? The answer is a lot less than you may think. My record is simple, any time I get a good run early it doesn't last. Any time I win or cash big I have come from behind because my run of good hands came at the end, not at the start.