Playing with large amount of chips - playing in the final table
As you grow as a tournament player, you tend to play in larger stake tournaments. You may be used to 200 players and now playing in a tournament with 2,000 players. With each step up, the fields of players tends to grow and can be quite overwhelming to some players.
These players feel they need to get ahead quickly and tend to be more competitive. They start to play more marginal hands and play faster overall. They look for any opportunity to gamble and double up.
Anytime you change your play that you are most comfortable with, it is probably a big mistake. Your method of play might have got you to this level by satellites, so why change it just because there are more players?
Instead, you should just concentrate on your table. These are the players that you need to beat right now. The rest of the players will be fine on their own. Howard Lederer determined that if you are playing in a tournament where the blinds double up every hour, the difference between winning a 300 person tournament versus a 2,400 player field is a matter of three more hours of play. Really, you just need to play your style longer as the field grows and hopefully get a large payday.
The blinds determine what hands we play in poker. With 10,000 starting chips and the blinds at 25/50, you do not need to play A-J in early position. You have the time to wait for better opportunities but take that same hand when the blinds are 1000/2000 and that is an all-in hand.
No one can win a large event that spans several days in the first day, so why try? All you can do is worry about your table and winning as many chips as possible while playing your normal style.
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