How you adapt to the blind structures is important….
Now first you want to kind of just get a feel for the tournament. Assume you gain an M of 1 per rotation. What point do you get below 20 big blinds? 10 big blinds? Now you want to look at the major increases in “M” these are good spots to take advantage of your tight image, and build a tight image around that period of time.
Look at an ante to small blind ratio. This is going to be a period of time when it’s correct to defend your blind more, and correct to attack players that don’t adapt to this ratio.
You want to find a period in a tournament where the antes increase, and the overall M increases the most. This is your most aggressive period of time. Now before that you may want to build a tight image….
BUT, you can actually build a LOOSE image against aggressive restealers. The reason is, when the increase comes, now you can raise, get reraised, and put in a REREraise and take down a large pot. Now if you are just raising big blinds and not adjusting your raise sizes to the blinds, then you only care about big blind increase in that instance, however antes play some role.
high big blind increase is a time for resteals, and most importantly isolation raises over limpers, and the big play preflop where you’re in position and you represent a big hand by going over the top of limpers. The major big blind increase means that this type of play is more valuable.
You should be able to come up with a different strategy for every blind level.
Do you steal more when folded to, do you encourage limping befor the blinds raise dramaticaly so that you can make a play over limpers? What kind of image do you build? DO you loosen up? can you afford to tighten up? Does your strategy chance as a big or small stack?
The important thing is still not to force it, however, be very aware of the situation, and LOOK to adapt to the table more aggressively if you need to. If you raise 2.5 big blinds always, then you are more vulnerable to a resteal when the antes are LOW n comparrison to the antes as you are not gaining as much on your steals and your pot odds to call a reraise aren’t as good. So adjust your raise sizes if you would like. A dramatic increase in the antes can also represent a good time period for you to open with more hands, or limp behind with more hands. Save the isolation raises for after several limpers when the blinds have increased. If your opponents play in a way where they are likely to play a “fold 5 or 6 times and reraise on the 6th or 7th to make everything back”, then there’s more reason to raise over the limpers with the antes are in as they are more likely to make a mistake by not adjusting to the extra money in the pot, however the difference is very small, so limping behind here is usually better.
Study the increases for image plays, study the ratios and cost per rotation for just adjustments that may be neccesary, and study how your chipstack relates to these increases, for plays that may be needed before you get desperate, as well as to better understand when you SHOULD be desperate, vs when its not as bad as you think…
Additionally, although you may notice that the blinds increase dramatically from one level to the next, it doesn’t neccesarily mean you hAVE to get super aggressive and make a play. In fact, if you could steal 5 times now, or 5 times in the next blind level, it’d be best to wait in terms of overall chips. The longer you can wait before taking on risk to come up with pots, the more every steal and small pot is worth. Although the chip increase may represent a HUGE increase from the level before, in 10 levels, that level will be miniscule. So if you can survive to the future levels and merely maintain your chipstack until then, and THEN go into hyper aggressive mode, through the entire course of the tournament passing up on early level steals will have a minimal impact. However, since there exists the ability to steal blinds after playing tight, you might as well wait one more round and attack the blinds after a big increase rather than before.
Also, from the contrarian perspective, you may think that it may make sense to double up and take on risks BEFORE you get to a huge increase. If you go broke, it’s not that big of a deal since that huge increase would have forced you to take on risk. On the other hand, if you amass a big stack, now you can put maximium pressure on your opponents. The risk you take the level before, may be worth it to double up and get a lot of chips so you can make several additional steals that you normally may have been unwilling to make.
Overall, your strategy makes sense to get progressively more aggressive, although it certainly is okay to have “image building” phases. Early on in the tournament you should play fairly pasive, unless you ahve a huge hand and can get the maximum in and still be profitable. When I say maximum I actually mean the “kelly criterion” if you have the best possible hand, just move all in. If you are 80% sure you have the best hand, be willing to put maybe 60% of your chips in. This is maximum aggression, but allows maximum growth. Anything beyond the Kelly Criterion isn’t neccesarily unprofitable in the long run, however, it is less profitable, and small errors can quickly result in it being unprofitable. Additionally, the risk of ruin increases as you go beyond the Kelly. Although in cash game envorinments and other betting situations where you actually are betting a percentage of your entire bankroll, you need to leave yourself room for error, and earnings less to ensure that you at least earn something is much better than the catestrophic error of over estimating either your return or your chance of winning, which could result in you anhiliating your bankroll. Howevr, in a tournament, although you should treat a tournament as a cashgame with your entire bankroll at play and the only way you’re guarenteed anything is by cashing, in other respects, you only lose what you put into the tournament, and you will be able to live another day. In my opinion, aiming for the “full kelly” is certainly acceptible, and accepting an amount beyond that is as well. The tournament doesn’t last forever like a cash game, therefore a little varience at the expence of lower long term growth, but by gaining EV and higher upswings when you win is still acceptible, and in rare situations may actually be preferred. (turbo structures in particular) Additionally, if you know that you will have to make bet that go beyond kelly in the future, taking on risks is acceptible.