The first stages of a tournament are often spots where you can gather a lot of chips with not so great cards, especially in a major tournament. You are going to have a lot of players that are in the live game for the first time and more than a few scared players. They don’t want to be the one to get knocked out on the first hand if you are a little looser and aggressive, you can take down hand after hand by applying pressure.

The early stages of the tournament are where you need to make the decision as to how you want to approach this tournament. Are you going to go for it or are you just going to try to survive. Those that sit around and wait for a hand end up getting short stacked and never have any chips to do battle with. Be aggressive in the right situations and take advantage of weak players and your stack will grow nicely in the first few hours.

Once you gather a stack, it is time to switch up gears and go after the really big hands. By this time, your aggressive play is going to be noted and you are going to have other big stacks coming after you. By switching your gears, you will now be able to set them up when you finally catch a big hand. You are looking for that one hand that will allow you to win a huge pot and show your hand. Do this a couple of times and everyone is going to start to slam on the breaks when they get into a hand with you.

This of course is when you go right back to the aggressive mode and take advantage of the fear that you have instilled in the rest of the table. Assuming the tournament director does not have you jumping from table to table, you are in a perfect position to pull off a nice bluff. Everyone knows that you are going to showdown with the best and unless they have a loaded hand, they are going to back off. You show the monster bluff and tilt starts to settle in on your table.

From there, you are going to have to play it by ear. If the table continues starts calling you down with anything again, you have to tighten it up and go back to playing big hands until you can show a few big winners. Remember, keeping everyone off balance is the best way to go deep. The moment people get a fix on you, you are walking right into their trap. You need to be the one setting the traps and scooping the chips. Regardless of the stage of the tournament that you are in, there are going to be weak and scared players that you will be able to take advantage of. Find them, take their chips and keep moving forward until you get to the final table.