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29.09.2006 In this article I will present an introductory guide to playing in Poker tournaments if you have never played in them before. What I do not promise is to turn you into an expert, that only comes with lots of practice, but I will hopefully make you confident enough to have a go at one of the many poker tournaments offered at poker rooms. I will do this by showing you a few tips and tricks to make you a better tournament player. The main Challenge in all tournaments
When you are playing on a standard poker table the aim is to only play the best hands which will allow you to win the pot safely. Tournament play is slightly different as the whole point is to knock out the other players by playing tactically, the way to do this is to get all the opponents chips.
Sit & Go Tournaments
In Sit & Go tournaments you really have to pay attention as the entire tournament seldom lasts more than an hour so from time to time you will have to bluff to win the pot. If you get eliminated early on, don't just hang around get straight onto another table analysing what you did wrong last time and try again!
Let me present here a solid strategy which you can use at Sit & Go tournaments, bearing in mind that most of these tournaments last between half an hour and an hour. On average you will only see a maximum of 70-100 hands in one of these tournaments so it can be a bit tricky to form a solid strategy based on these hands, especially since other players are getting knocked out all the time. Because of this low number of hands played it is entirely possible that you won't get any decent hands in the whole tournament (ace/ace, king/king, ace/king etc) but the only upside is that your opponents have exactly the same problem.
Because of this situation you can't always wait for a good hand before betting, the blind bets are increasing all the time so if you play a tight game you will run out of money sooner or later. Having said that you shouldn't be too cavalier either but you will definitely need to play more aggressively than you would on a standard poker table.
Most players don't like folding, especially new players and especially when they are in a tournament. So if you do get an ok'ish hand don't be scared to bet more than you usually would, as the chances of people bluffing are very high. Also betting a lot tends to confuse your opponents and you can quite often suck them into the pot even of they are sitting with junk cards. Remember to be ruthless and get all of their chips before someone else does!
Texas Hold'em tournaments are famous for people playing in a very loose and aggressive style at the lower levels and then when they get to the end game where the stakes are higher they tighten up their game considerably. What they are banking on is that other players get knocked out before them as the blind bet limits increase. This is a good solid strategy but sometimes it is actually more effective to turn this strategy on its head. The overall objective is of course to end up as being one of the last three players and at that point if you are the chip leader and can dominate the game.
Another tip is to play aggressively. In this strategy you aren't just checking or raising a little bit, instead you are raising and re-raising whenever you have fairly good cards or believe you are in a position to bluff your opponent. In poker you always need a bit of luck but by playing clever aggressive you can actually increase your luck. Sometimes you will get a reputation for being a bit wild if you are over aggressive but as long as you can back it up with good hands every now and then it is a good effective strategy, but keep it controlled.
Try to raise whenever you have the opportunity. If you are unable to do that then it is best to sit out the hand. Try to raise in such a way that you end up with just one opponent and then proceed from there.
It is important to remember that in tournaments you don't have the option of going back to the bank as you only have a limited amount of chips at the start so it is always worth pushing an opponent to try and make them fold.
It is crucial to keep a close eye on the chip stack of your opponents in tournament play in comparison to how they are playing. If you notice a player becoming very short stacked, running out of chips, then you can almost guarantee that he will very soon go all-in within a few hands as that is the only strategy available to them. Also if you notice that a player hasn't done much in the last few hands and it then becomes there turn to put in the blind you should raise them on general principle, it happens so often that this player will meet the raise even though they don't have any cards, you can then raise on the next round and if they are low on chips they will have no option but to fold and you pick up a nice amount of chips!
Some times you might actually get some nice cards but it won't happen enough in a tournament so as explained previously this is the reason why you need to play aggressively. It also means that it is essential to read your opponents to succeed in tournament play. Pay particular attention to the players who get scared by big raises, it is very easy to take chips off these players as they will be playing too far too tight. If you do manage to get to the final and it is between you and another player then having the greater stack of chips is a huge advantage as the blind bets will quickly get bigger and bigger.
Conclusion
In conclusion about Sit & Go tournaments I offer the following advice; Play loose in the first few rounds and avoid situations where you can get knocked out, like going all in on the first hand ;-). Have faith in the strong hands you get dealt and play tight before the flop and then more loosely. You should match your level of aggressiveness to how the tournament develops, and always factor in your position at the table, for example being the last player to bet at a table gives you a big advantage. Realistically you should only try to win the big money towards the end of the tournament, in the early stages you should focus on winning every third hand and just surviving to the later rounds, this applies to tables of ten players, at smaller tables the ratio is different.
Multi-table tournaments
These tournaments can have as many as 1800 players and it is not unusual for the tournament to last for up to five hours, so unless you are a real night bird don't start one of these at 02:00 in the morning as one of my friends did once, he actually did fairly well but fell asleep at the keyboard ;-). As with the Sit & Go tournaments it is very important to keep your wits about you and pay attention to the table at all times. There are also a few core rules which you should follow if you want to be successful.
Don't call if a lot of other players are also calling and also vary your play from tight too loose and differing levels of aggressiveness, don't let your opponents get a fix on your playing style.
Early in the game
In a tournament with 1800 other players there will always be lucky players, and they won't necessarily have a lot of skill at the game. So play tight to start off with and let these players knock each other out which they almost always do. As with other tournaments you only have your start stack so don't waste it by calling unnecessarily when you are only sitting there with a 5, 3 unsuited. Remember that it is usually only the top 30 who win any prizes in a tournament and this should be your aim. The overall thing to keep in mind is that you can't win on luck alone, no one is that lucky so you have to play cleverly.
The Middle game
You have made it to the first break, which is 5 minutes every hour. You can now start playing a bit more in your natural style as the players who are now left will generally be of a good standard. Although it is your own style it should still be looser than on a normal poker table and a bit more aggressive so that you can earn lots of chips for the final table. Keep a close eye on your opponent's stack of chips and also that of the overall leader, you can do this by checking the status in the tournament lobby. If you are lagging behind then you will need to start raising more, this can be nervy as a player with more chips than you can re-raise you forcing you to go all-in. If that happens and you are confident with your card don't get scared off, go for it, you don't really have a choice because if you get bullied off the pot too many times then not only will you loose money slowly but you will also become a target for the other players. In summary, in this phase you need to loosen up your play and become more aggressive, it is very important to build up a good stack of chips in this phase, if you play tight and still get to the final table you won't have enough chips to compete anyway, so go for it!
The Final table
If you get this far then you have definitely played well, you are now where you want to be. You will hopefully have built up a good amount of chips by now because you will certainly need them, if you have a small stack you won't last long unless you are either very lucky or all the other players are terrible and both are very unlikely.
So what strategy should you employ on the final table? I would recommend that you play even looser, almost recklessly and take some chances. If you are sitting there with a good hand it is time to try and knock out your opponents by making them go all in. Every single player you knock out now is very important. At the same time be careful about challenging players with bigger stacks than you except if you really do have a good hand!
Another good strategy for the final table is to not get locked into games where there are several players competing for the pot as the odds of one of them having a better hand than you obviously increases. It is sometimes better to let the other two battle it out and when one looses you can then attack him, unless he has won lots of chips in the process.
So in summary on the final table of a multi table tournament you need to play loose and take risks and don't be scared of going all-in if you have a good hand.
Some general tips
If you get to a situation where the blind bets is a 1/4 of your chip stack you really need to start playing aggressively. You may be asking yourself whether your next hand might be better than your current hand but you don't really have time to wait you need to start winning some chips and fast. Calling won't really work and the best strategy is to go all-in even on the pre-flop because otherwise your money will vanish soon anyway, eaten up by the blinds. If you don't go all-in at the preflop and only call then you have already lost 1/4 of your stack and it's not even certain you can take part in the play after the flop. It's also not such a great idea to bluff because you don't have enough chips to scare an opponent away. You just have to hope and pray that the flop, turn and river cards are kind to you and you end up with a good enough hand.
The profile of the eventual winner is often the same. They will have had relatively good cards, (luck can always help in poker), and will have played aggressively and with a few other breaks going their way. Of course it is impossible to control how lucky you are but you can certainly control your strategy and how you play in the tournament. My advice is to try and grab the small pots when you suspect that your opponent is weak or wavering. By doing this you will build up a good chip stack to play with plus you will get other opponents to follow you into the pot when you actually have good cards, which means you can win even more chips. A really good poker player is one who has the correct balance between a tight and loose game and knows when to play each style. If you can master that then you will be on the road to making good money at poker.
When you get to the situation of there being fewer players left in the tournament than there are prizes you start playing round for round. This means that all the tables start playing at the same tempo until there are just 10 players left, who make up the final table. In round for round play none of the tables start the next hand until all the other tables have finished the current hand. This is done to ensure fairness and to make sure that all players have the same chance of getting the top placement in terms of stack size etc. In this critical stage you just need to make a small error to end up in 30th place instead of one the final table, so as always keep your wits about you.
Poker is a game where experience will let you read other players as other good players can read you. Texas Hold'em in particular is a game where you can lay traps for your opponents. For example never let any of your opponents know that you are sitting with a good hand, you want them to call you and remain in the pot. On the other hand it is very important that the opposite doesn't happen so always try and work out what possible combination of hands your opponents might have, no matter how outlandish. An example of this could see you sitting with a pair of aces as pocket cards and the flop produces an ace, 10, 3. The turn card comes up as a 5, and the river a 8 and there aren't more than 2 cards on the table of the same suit. In this scenario you are sitting pretty with 3 aces whilst you know that both a flush, straight and full house are impossible, in other words you can feel completely safe and really try and drive the pot up to the max.
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