Dan don't do donkaments

You see this advice all the time.

Play tight early, steal blinds as you get shorter, become insanely aggressive when you have a very short stack.

It's the received wisdom. It's how Dan Harrington plays. But Dan Harrington doesn't play donkaments.

I play like this too. Ultratight early, gradually loosening up. Most tourneys I go fairly deep but I'm fairly short. I cash quite often but not usually for much money. I'm kind of at the mercy of my cards. If I get decent cards, I might double up early and then I'm well fixed. If I double up twice, I can usually go quite deep.

Hang on. There's a theme in there, isn't there? I do well when I double up. I don't do well when I just survive. So why am I playing just to survive? I'm all too aware that converting AA/KK into a doubleup requires a bit of luck: someone willing to gamble with you with a worse hand.

Now, doubtless in a 10K entry tourney, with two-hour blinds, playing ultratight is best. You are going to get plenty of hands and you do not have too much pressure on you. You might only get 60 hands at those blinds, or even fewer, but that's a lot more than the 10 min, 20 max that I get in a donkament. You will also be at the same table for some time. In donkaments, I am usually moved in the first hour. What's the point of having an ultratight image if you're moved before you can use it to advantage?

So I've started playing like a fish on the button. But only on the button. I'll play just about any hand for a single bet, and I'll play anything promising for a raise. The donkeys never fold, so I can't win by bluffing. I have to hit my hand. It's still possible to smallball a few pots when things go your way -- I'm not saying I have to nutpeddle. I'm just saying that with weaker starting hands, you cannot be so sure that your pair is good. But playing tight just does not give you sufficient chances to hit anything in a donkament and playing more pots gives me more chance to take the money from the useless players who are spraying chips around early.

I suppose what it boils down to is this: say I play in a 300-player tourney. I play virtually no cards and watch all the dead money rearrange itself. I get down to 1000 chips and have to pick a hand to commit to. So I'm pushing my AQ. And get called by a pair of 3s and IGH. That's half my tourneys. The other half, I chip up but get stuck behind a bigstack who is LAGging it up, never pick up anything I can challenge him with, and find myself at t200 with 2500 chips, finding myself unable to raise anything that I don't want to commit myself to going all the way with. That's the problem with the play tight, then loosen up plan. My opponents already play looser than I do, even if I loosen up. And they are not as scared of the bubble as theorists think. They'll call you with that pair of 3s if they have you covered.