Tournament Survival

In tournaments, survival is just as important as accumulating chips. Sometimes avoiding unnecessary risks is the smartest decision, especially near the money bubble. Patience and timing can make a huge difference.
What’s your best tournament result so far?

The real survival in MTTs is not just surviving inside the tournament: it’s mentally surviving weeks without cashes.

Yes, my friend, it's a very complex game, where sometimes you have to be aggressive and sometimes passive with good hands. Personally, I already have game strategies designed that have given me good results so far.

Years ago I won a couple hundred dollars in one of those ACR reentry freerolls . They had many great ways to get a good profit back then . Now they run those crazy AIOF step events constantly but it's really hard to move up 3 or 4 levels . And even then you wind up with a big value MTT ticket, where you're up against top players with 4 hours of late registration and lots of rebuyers .

Being able to quietly survive tournaments while playing at tables is good, but it's hard to survive tournaments when you're trying to survive in real life by running to the basement several times during a tournament to escape rockets or air strikes.

Houbi37 said:

In tournaments, survival is just as important as accumulating chips. Sometimes avoiding unnecessary risks is the smartest decision, especially near the money bubble. Patience and timing can make a huge difference.
What’s your best tournament result so far?

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Good comments mate. And, essentially I do agree.

But, I'd add a few twist to your comments .... maybe another (maybe better) way to view survival is in the "accumulation of chips" rather than strictly focusing on survival. Accumulation of chips = Survival.

If a player is to actually make a Final table (only way to actually win a tournament) then they certainly will need to accumulate chips along the way. Too many players play too TAG (tight and aggressive) and focus "mainly on just surviving" rather than on the many differing ways to win a hand and tournament. This approach can become somewhat negative for one's game strategy and limit making the Final Table. Fear of losing can easily become too integrated into your game strategy.

TAG and survival is generally a great strategy, but I do suggest playing somewhat differently, at times, throughout the game based on other factors like POSITION, CHIP LEVEL, and THE WAY OTHERS PLAY (traits discerned). There are certainly times when you should take more risk especially if you want to win a tournament.

Just be aware that you cannot actually WIN a tournament based on the one hand (unless it is the last hand), but you can actually LOSE a tournament based on one hand.

So, patience, timing, position, stack size, other player's traits, number of players at the table, number of player yet to play, size of the bet or raise, player aggression, hole cards, hand odds, reading common cards correctly, EGO (yours and other players) and how all these factors relate based on phase of tournament.

And, then there is LUCK, good and bad.

GL, Wally

In tournaments, I increasingly realize that survival and chip accumulation are two sides of the same process. Sometimes the most profitable decision is not to escalate the situation, but simply to get through a dangerous phase and preserve my stack for better spots later.
This is especially true on the bubble: patience there often becomes more valuable than one “beautiful” risky call or bluff.
If I talk about my experience, my best results so far are not defined by a single big win, but rather by several deep runs where I consistently reached the late stages and final tables. That’s where I first truly felt how well-chosen spots and patience start to translate into real money.