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  There was a time a little over a decade ago when a good player could sit down at the beginning of a tournament, and most of the people seated with him would be of the "guppy" variety. If there was a good player at the table, you would simply stay out of his way until natural selection got rid of all the fish and only left the skilled players. Today if you take your seat at the start of a tourney, you have a table worth of piranhas staring back at you. So how do you deal with a table full of tough foes?



  When it comes to poker advice, Daniel Negreanu is to the game what Paul was to the Bible's New Testament. He suggests that you approach these strong players with aggression, but we are going to speak some heresy here and say Daniel has gotten it half wrong.



  At the risk of tempting a lightning bolt from the poker gods, we are going to make a modification to Mr. Negreanu's advice. You cannot be aggressive with a group of skilled players immediately. If you do, they will bust you with a form of poker jujitsu where your own belligerent play is turned back on yourself. Before you become an aggressive player at the table, you should start out playing with all the unbridled fury and passion of a disinterested sloth.



  Start out by playing only legitimately strong hands. This means you will not be part of many pots in the first few hours, and your stack will take some damage from the blinds, but remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. The pots you win will be like annoying yet stinging jabs that a boxer delivers to their opponent to keep them at bay. After a couple of hours of this style they will simply expect that you are only in the pot when you have the nuts, or something close to it. With this established as your table image you can now start bluffing and showing the sort of aggression that Daniel suggests. When you play, they will reflexively fold and you will steal the pot.



  Most good poker players will eventually figure out what you are doing, and start challenging you. At this point you switch back to being conservative. Your legit hands will now get more action, and your pots will grow. The key is to zig when they are zagging and keep your opponents off balance.