In a cash game your stack is money. In a tournament it is only a ticket to keep playing — the payout arrives at the door marked "finish position," and the door keeps moving. Three structural facts follow from that and reshape every lesson in the earlier tracks. First, the blinds rise on a posted schedule, so your stack measured in big blinds shrinks even in the levels where you win every pot you play. Second, antes switch on partway through most events, growing the dead money in every pot and quietly widening every defending range. Third, because the field eliminates down to one table and then to one player, survival itself acquires value — the idea the next lesson makes precise.

The practical consequence is that tournament poker is played by depth, not by level. A 60-big-blind stack plays the same game whether it appears in level two or level twelve; a 12bb stack plays push/fold whether it arrived there by losing pots or by the structure catching up to you. Cash-game intuitions — fixed blinds, fixed depth, every chip worth its face value — hold only in the early levels, and progressively less as payouts approach.

1. Convert the schedule to depth.Before each level, restate your stack in big blinds; that number, not the clock, picks your strategy.
2. Reprice pots with antes.More dead money improves the price of both opens and defends; ranges widen on both sides.
3. Notice which stage you are in.Early resembles cash play; middle brings shallow spots; near the money, payout pressure overrides chip logic.
4. Expect depth to cycle.Deep and shallow stretches alternate all event long, so push/fold technique is not an emergency skill — it is routine maintenance.