MTT strategy with a big, but not dominant, stack

[slapdash]

I played the Mansion $150k guaranteed tournament last night, and for a while I was doing really well (at least partly through luck: I started off by doubling up on the very first hand with full house vs. full house ... I don't think there was any way my opponent could have got away from putting all his chips in). I was in the top ten for some time, and was the big stack on my table. During this period I was successfully bullying the other players and building my stack. I felt pretty good about how I was playing. Then I lost a sizeable pot and was no longer big stack at my table (the big stack was sitting a couple of places over me), though I was still comfortably in the top quarter of the field. Then I seemed to just start losing chips, and eventually got short-stacked enough that I went all-in, got called, and lost a race with KQ v JJ. I'm sure that to some extent this was because of my cards, but when I was no longer big stack at my table, I just didn't feel so comfortable about how I was playing. Basically, I feel I know what I'm doing when I'm short-stacked (lots of practice! :tongue2) and when I have a very big stack, but in between I feel I'm floundering a bit in the later stages of tournaments. Anybody have any general strategic tips about how to play in the later stages of a (reasonably high-standard ... this was $100 buy-in) tournament when you have a fairly big stack but there are bigger stacks at your table?

[GaF]

Re: MTT strategy with a big, but not dominant, stack I HATE having a mid stack and dont play it well at all.... say with 10 to 20 BB..... I tend to "go to sleep" at this stage and wait till I am short stacked enough to play my short stack game or I get hit over the head with the deck and build my stack.... I think conventional wisdom is to start loosening up and get more involved (and try to build a stack) isn't it? Like you though, I feel I just leak chips doing this..... I'll be interested in the other responses....