Might this affect a player’s tactics in the tournament? It almost certainly does for two reasons:
1 The amount of money spent on the buy-in is sufficient to cause emotional hurt if it is lost.
2 The amount of prizes on offer due to the collective buy-ins can be enough to cause involuntary salivation to someone not blessed with loose cash.
The question arises whether the player switches to ultra-cautious mode from hand 1 to preserve himself from elimination early on or does he focus on the ultimate prizes and go hell for leather in the early stages to build up a stack only to seize up before the bubble?
If you are in such a tournament, you will naturally be seeking an early clue to your opponents’ behaviour and tactics but this is something achieved by observing rather than prior knowledge of those players’ monetary circumstances. What should also be of concern is your own response to entering a high-stakes tournament.
Are you, yourself, prone to tightening up more than you would in a more comfortable level tournament? Might you find yourself paralysed as you approach the money places by bubble-fear? These emotional adjustments will affect the outcome and you need to judge if you need to make them at all or whether you have to work at recognising them and try to resist them.
Is your tournament play at lower levels good with results to match? If so, you have to work at resisting a temptation to change simply because of the bigger stakes involved. Your only adjustments should be to compensate for your opponents’ play.
If your play at lower levels is faulty anyway, you need to have some idea why this is and know where to make changes to strategy. Ignoring the obvious conclusion that you ought not to be playing a higher level at all, the fact is you are there to play. So, is it because of ego or has a one-off opportunity arisen? Whatever the case, you will need to think quickly to decide how best to adapt to this chance to make good money. It won’t be easy but you will need to be disciplined.
The chances are that, if you are a solid player at lower levels who knows the benefit of selective aggression, you will need to guard against tightening up at the higher stakes. Whereas, if you are somewhat erratic at lower levels – and you find yourself playing at a higher stakes game despite this – you probably should tighten up to eliminate whatever loose play is costing you lower down.