Poker tournaments are a blast. I play dozens a week. Honestly, ever since I learned how to play Texas Hold'em, I've logged (at least) twice as many hours playing tournaments than cash games. The reason they are so much fun is that they combine the skill of poker with the high drama of wading through a large crowd to hit it big. Where to play? There are many excellent sites out there, most open to US players. For example, I recently found a new one, BetUS, which like the others, can have you downloaded and playing in minutes. So, now that you've picked an arena, picked a buy-in, and gotten your first two cards, what now?
There are two essential skills required to do well in tournaments. First, the poker itself, the playing of each hand. Second, and IMMENSELY important, is tournament strategy. Like it or not, this is a critical component of tournament success, and I invite you to explore it, because it's either a weapon or a weakness. Otherwise, it's like coaching a football team, but having no concept of clock management. You can make huge fundamental mistakes and not even realize you're doing it.
A solid poker tournament strategy begins with knowing what to do at the beginning of the tournament. Blinds are small, risks greatly outweigh rewards. In general. But let's adjust a bit for online poker. At the beginning of a tourney, there will be a moderate number of reckless and wild players who have no regard for their beginning chip stack. In my experience this ranges from 5-30% of starting field, depending on the tournament buy-in cost. When playing online poker, these are the people who have never even thought of bringing a poker tournament strategy to the table. They play each hand individually, often as if it was their last. You have two basic options here, stay out of their way and only showdown a big hand, or if you are able to recognize and get a good read on this, exploit it and take their chips before someone else does. Which should you do? Well...
For perspective, if you sit out, and not play a single hand for the first hour of any large tourney, what will you see at the first break? You'll probably have 3/4 your chips, and this will put you ahead of 20% of the field and the 40% that are ALREADY OUT. So, the safe bet? Play tight and stay out of trouble. Trust me, it won't stop the maniacs from giving their chips away, they will just try harder.
The next piece of a good poker tournament strategy involves making it through the middle of the tourney. This usually involves more aggressive play as the dead money is in the hands of good players, yet, it is still necessary to accumulate more chips. If you have or can play an aggressive style, now is the time for it. You know that feeling you have, the one where you worry about busting out of the tournament? Yeah, that one. Everyone else has it too, right now in fact. Can you overcome yours to exploit theirs?
The final segment of a poker tournament is where it all comes together. A couple of tables left, and now it's all about situations, and specifically the adjustments you make for them. Do you aggressively adjust your hand selection when short-handed? How do you handle big stacks? Small stacks? Some of these people have played with you for hours. Can you still keep them guessing? Finally, do you have the courage to risk going home, to put your chips in the middle when you need to? Champions do all of these things and more.
Tournament strategy is a pivotal part of winning poker tournaments. A small amount of time invested learning this discipline will give you a massive edge over most of the field.
0 comments:
Post a Comment