Chip attraction

It's a wonderful thing to have a big stack in a tournament. Since everyone starts with the same size stack, it takes skill and luck to build yours up. If you can manage to do it, though, you've gained an incredible advantage over the rest of the table. This is tournament 101, of course. The funny thing is, when your stack gets big enough, it starts to act like a chip magnet. You start winning a lot of pots before the flop; people won't even take you on without a really good starting hand. You also start winning a lot of pots betting on the flop; people get scared that if they call, you'll put them all in on a later street. They're also scared that if they raise, you'll come over the top and put them all in on the current street. So they take the prudent course and fold. Of course, the more pots you win, the larger your stack grows, and the more frightening it becomes, causing your opponents to fold with even more alacrity. At some point you pass a tipping point, and your stack becomes an unstoppable juggernaut. Opponents won't be able to win by betting, since the size of your stack will put them all in on every serious confrontation, and the law of averages dictates that they'll lose. You only have to win one time to beat them, whereas they have to beat you multiple times. Opponents also won't be able to win by not betting, as their stacks will get eaten away by the ever escalating blinds. In short, at a certain point your victory is assured. That's exactly what happened to me in the final tournament I entered last night. Take it from me, it was sweet!

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 80000      1000           6        18     5        0
 50000       800           6        24     4        0
 50000       800           6        55     3        0
150000      1250           6       127     1   585000

delta: $251,150
balance: $5,081,321