I"m new to this site and have been lurking for a while. One thing I've noticed is most sites after the 1st hour it's about 50% left in the field. On prima it's about 1/3 left after the first hour. Play their seems to be far looser. I can almost always make the money but getting a large stack early is always a problem. The one i'm playing now I"m 54 outta 145 left after 800 started. That's 1 h 27 minutes in. I guess I need help building the stack when the average rises so quickly.

I"m now 46 with 54 left and about 1/3 of the average stack. I guess it's gonna be a major push now........

I've found mostly the same thing. If you get lucky early with a single good hand, possibly two and can double up, you'll have a good chip stack at the end of the first hour. if you play sensible tight poker, you'll probably still be doing okay.. just with an average or slightly below average stack.

assuming you're talking the sub-$10 games at least, I play the $10 freezeouts and sometimes the $3.50 when I'm bored, and it's generally loose as all hell for 30-40 mins. People will CALL an all-in with Ace-rag, king-rag, Jack+suited, Queen+suited all day long. These people either double up and bleed chips for the next hour, or go out quick, god bless 'em.

So, personally I play anything at all that's suited with a queen or better, any ace with a kicker above 8, and any king with a 9 or better for the first round of blinds, plus any suited connectors, 1-gap suited and high connectors (T8, T9, 89) even unsuited. It's pretty loose, but you can't be too tight at the start unless you happen to get a monster hand.

And because Prima blinds are pretty much a crap structure, the blinds rise higher than the stacks most of the time and the AVERAGE stack can end up being 2-3BB near the bubble, which makes for some really really long bubble play times. Once in the money, I push with everything on the button and hope for the best if i'm not in the top 10. I've done pretty well with their MTT's and i've won a few, but none of them were without their lucky coinflips. Just playing tight, smart poker does not work with their blind structures.