Warning: old-school fisherm-sized post coming...

After years away from tournament poker, concentrating on cash-games, I've recently (2-3 months) gotten back into playing tournaments online.  I'm trying mostly MTTs, supplementing a few 1-table Sit n go's from time-to-time to replenish some lost buy-ins from the MTTs. 

As far as recent MTT results, over the course of the past 2 months, I have 1 win (only a 180-seater), a small smattering of cashes (where I barely more than doubled my $3 or $4 buy in), a whole slew of almost cashes - i.e. the money line is at 270 and I get knocked out around 300 or 400, and of course plenty where I get knocked out in the first hour too.

It seems to me what's missing from my current game is the know-how to go deep into a big tournament.  By big I'm talking 2,000-ish entrants - those are the ones I'm mostly concerned with.  Buy-ins I'm playing are $2.20, $3.30, $4.40... up to $8.80. 

It seems like at a certain time I get to a point where I have a ton of chips (say 2-4xs average or more), and things look good, but then I just coast along, my chipstack doesn't grow, and all the sudden I have 1/2 an average stack or worse.  I don't know if it's just a mental hurdle or something... like I start to not take any risks, or something.  I had a similar problem in my cash game mentality a while back, but that was a fear of losing the money in front of me; I was able to overcome that fear of losing the big stack.  But in a tourny it really shouldn't be the same since the buy-in is already set - and small.  Yet, it seems that I still do get into this weird fear of crashing and burning, which ultimately turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then there are the plenty of times where I never get anything going - where I hover somewhere under the average stack for a couple hours, and finally get forced to make a stand and get knocked out.  This to me is the most frustrating - spend multiple hours, and just never really getting any steam, always getting to a point where you're looking for a good spot to get all in again in hopes of doubling just to stick around a little longer, and then bust at like 500, missing even a measely cash by a couple hundred spots.

I guess I'm hoping to hear some general pointers.   Techniques you try to keep in mind to set yourself up for a deep run, things you do to get into the right mindset so you don't just 'conserve' your chips (yet conserve when necessary), etc.  I know, small questions, right?    

Am I just hitting the inevitable high-variance of MTTs?  I feel like I'm missing "something" to be able to make more consistent deep runs.  Or is that just a pipe dream?

Focus on utilizing the float and stop and go more often.  Once you build your stack, you gotta keep the pressure on the medium sized stacks.

This will ensure that you don't bleed off to 1/2 the average stack.  Showing that you are playing very little hands helps in utilizing those two strategies.  Then, you can start stealing from the button back to the hi jack more often as well.

Once down to cash, how big your stack is depends on how you can play.  Larger stacks, I would open up my starting range a bit.  But be careful of what kind of stacks are behind you.  You don't want to commit yourself to an all in against a 10-15bb stack with KJ.

If you are hovering around the average, play ABC poker.

Once in the deeper part of the cash but still 8 tables away from final table, you really have to be cognizant of your stack at the fold equity you are able to provide.  Bigger stacks (esp weaker players) will call off just about anything if you are holding less than 15 to even 20 bb's.

Once I am down to 10-20 bb's my shoving range expands dramatically pre if there are one or more limpers.  Even 9T o gets shoved if there are two limpers pre. 

Of course you still have to feel your table.  If you know you are going to get called (which you can sense just by the way they are playing) you don't really want to try to steal with KQ unless you think you are ahead, whereas KQ would normally be a good shove  against players you know can fold. 

Sounds like you need to add a little more aggression to your game as well.  Judgement call just based on what you wrote above, but I think you get my point.

Funny, one day after I post this, I final table a 1500 seat tournament, only to get knocked out in 8th when my AK (tptk on flop) gets beat by a check-raising ATo when he caught a runner-runner straight.

Being conscious of fold-equity seemed to help me figure out when a steal/resteal would likely work.  The deck only had to bail me out big time once.

Thanks for the pointers, Jim - and yea, you're right about the aggression -- at times I've found being a touch passive can help get through the beginning stages of tournaments, when lady luck is weeding out the crazies, but I know I need to crank up the aggression in the middle and later parts.

$4.40 buy in; 8th place was $117.87.  First was just over $1K.

Monster ROI!  Well Done

Stars.  I like their tournament structures better than tilt, too - typically longer blind periods early and middle (though endings still often turn into a pushfest).  Besides the nightly $2.20, $3.30 and $4.40's, they also have 90 and 180 person sit n go's that start up regularly for lower buy-ins.