How to survive each stage of the tour???

After passing the end stage buyin, add-on. Advance to the ITM stage. And then get into how it's acceptable for ITM to constantly hold JQs+ hands and be all in your face. Abandoning the king is a sin. But if you shove all in and expect luck, the win rate is quite low despite relatively strong hands with QJs+. Is there any experience here that I can share with you?

thanhnguyen089 said:

After passing the end stage buyin, add-on. Advance to the ITM stage. And then get into how it's acceptable for ITM to constantly hold JQs+ hands and be all in your face. Abandoning the king is a sin. But if you shove all in and expect luck, the win rate is quite low despite relatively strong hands with QJs+. Is there any experience here that I can share with you?

Click to expand...

I totally get what you mean — the ITM stage always turns into an all-in fest! 😅


Personally, I try to tighten up a bit there and pick my spots carefully.


Players tend to overvalue hands like QJs or KQ when stacks get short, so I focus more on position and stack depth rather than just hand strength.





If I do shove, I prefer doing it first-in rather than calling someone else’s shove. It gives me a bit more fold equity.

I don't think it's about surviving every stage.
If you focus solely on surviving a tournament, the blinds will eat you up before the ITM.
So, for me, each stage of the tournament should be approached with a specific goal for that stage:

In the initial period, with rebuys, which lasts about 2 to 3 hours, the goal should be to build a comfortable stack.

After the rebuy phase, the goal should be to survive and protect your stack until the ITM.

After the ITM, the goal should be to protect your stack until the buy-ins are high enough to significantly increase your stack.

From the middle of the ITM onward, focus on aggressively increasing your stack.

If you draw strong cards midway through and manage to establish yourself in the top positions, protect your stack to achieve a high finish.

It's hard to survive the first stage where a lot of all-ins take place.

Even after all these years playing I still manage to bubble many tournaments. Sometimes it’s being too tight and sometimes it’s tilt or bad luck. I usually do fine early on by playing tight and picking my spots.

Good question, man. Surviving each stage of a tour really comes down to adapting your strategy as the field gets thinner. Early on, it’s all about stack preservation. No need to take marginal spots with hands like QJs unless the table is super passive or you’ve got a clear postflop edge. Play in position, pick your spots, and let others bust themselves trying to build stacks too fast.

Once you get close to ITM, things change. ICM pressure kicks in hard, and a lot of players tighten up. That’s the moment where stealing blinds and restealing becomes pure value — especially with hands like QJs or KQs that still have solid equity when called. But going all-in preflop against bigger stacks can be dangerous, because you’re often running into dominating ranges.

After you’re ITM, dynamics shift again. Short stacks start shoving light, and big stacks abuse the bubble survivors. That’s when you can open up your range a bit more and start pushing the tempo, but still with awareness of who you’re up against. QJs+ can definitely make money — just depends on when you decide to turn it into an all-in hand versus when it’s better to play postflop.

I also share some of these concepts live on my Twitch channel, with real tournament examples and breakdowns. Feel free to stop by and check it out sometime.