How to Improve Your Tournament Game

Gain experience online
Online tournaments are a great way to gain experience. The poker rooms on the Internet offer tournaments with re-buys or freeze outs, with buy-ins ranging from $1 to several thousand dollars. The size of the buy-in will not affect your basic strategy very much. There may be several hundred players in a "cheap" tournament and it will not be easy to win.

Online games are quicker
Online games are much quicker than live ones - there is no shuffling, no chip counting and so on. You play a considerably higher number of hands per hour and thus gain more experience. The online poker rooms also offer many one or two table tournaments. That is a good way to practice final table play.

Source: WSOP

The Final Table

Final table strategy
When you're at the final table your aim should be to finish in the top three places because usually that's where the big prizes are. The closer you get to the top spots the more aggressive you should be. This is especially effective if you have been playing passively earlier in the game. Your opponents might be trying to outlast each other and that is something you should take full advantage of. Try to steal the blinds and/or antes whenever you get a chance.

Adjusting to stack size
The size of your chips stack influences the way you should act at the final table. If your stack is medium sized or big you should use basic poker tournament strategy to achieve your goal - pick on the small stacks but avoid confrontation with the big stacks if you can. If you have a small stack you have to act before it gets so small that doubling up won't make a difference. You can't afford to be picky - choose a hand a go with it and remember to be the aggressor and not the caller. The exception is if you get a really strong hand - in that case you might slow play in order to maximize the payoff.

Source: WSOP

Late Stage Strategy

Big or middle sized stack
Every poker players dream is reaching the late stages of a tournament with a big stack of chips. If you should find yourself in this position you have a huge advantage you must capitalize on. Only in this situation can you afford to play a bit more passively until you are close to the money. When you are only a few places away from the prizes, you should pick up the pace with your big stack (or even with a medium stack).

The risk of going broke will scare your opponents into playing tight and you will have plenty of opportunities to steal pots and make bluffs. A really aggressive playing style is recommended under these circumstances and you should make sure that you are the aggressor and not the caller. You should avoid confrontations with other big stacks and pick on the smaller stacks instead in order to avoid going broke.

Small stack
If you're stack is small you want to make a move before it's too late. If you wait too long you will become so short stacked that the other players will bully you around regardless of what cards they're holding. If you're dealt really good cards you should do all you can to get action in order to double up. For example, you might slow play hands you normally wouldn't risk going broke with.

In this situation you have to gamble more and take risks if you want a chance of winning the tournament. Needless to say you run a greater risk of going broke but that's a price you have to pay.

Source: WSOP

Middle Stage Strategy

Your goal in this stage of the tournament is simple - you want to make it to the late stages and you want to do it with a big stack. However, this won't happen by itself. The stakes are rising at a regular basis and you can't afford to sit back and wait for really strong cards before you get involved in the action. The blinds and/or antes now hurt your stack and you have to open up your game and start picking up pots. You have to be aggressive and take more risks in this stage of the tournament. As always it's vital that you keep track of your opponents playing styles. If they play tight you should loosen up, and if they play loose you should tighten up. Your knowledge about the opponents will be valuable in many other ways. You will know which players you can bluff and which ones are "calling stations". If you use this information correctly you will have very good chances of increasing your chips stack.

Source: WSOP

Early Stage Strategy

The beginning of a tournament is the time to accumulate chips in order to gain a strong position in the game. In the early stages of a poker tournament you will normally have a lot of chips compared to the stakes. In other words you're not running the risk of getting anted or blinded out of the tournament. Consequently you can afford the luxury to wait for strong cards before getting heavily involved in the action. The best way to go is to play patient, solid poker and try to trap weaker players. Don't make any big gambles where you risk going broke in this stage of the tournament. If you play your cards wisely you will hopefully have a decent sized chips stack pretty soon.

Source: WSOP

The Gap Concept

A key to tournament poker
Tournament poker requires special strategies and tactics. One thing you have to be familiar with is the gap concept. This concept was introduced by the famous poker theorist David Sklansky and it's actually rather simple - in a poker tournament, you will generally need a better hand to play against someone who has opened the betting than what you need to open the betting with yourself. The difference between the two mentioned hands is called the gap.

Using the gap
The width of the gap gets bigger if you're facing a tight opponent and smaller if you're facing a loose opponent. As a result of this you should make raises with many hands you would never call a raise with. If you have late position and a decent stack in a Hold'em game and no one has opened the action, you might well raise with hands as weak as A-x, K-9s and 2-2. However, you should always be aware of extremely aggressive players. If a player that often plays back is sitting in the blinds you have to be careful and more selective.

Source: WSOP

The Stack Size

The size of your chip stack is a very important factor in poker tournaments. For example, it greatly influences the way you should apply the gap concept.

Small stack
If you're stack is small the gap decreases. In these cases you can't afford to risk chips by steal raising with average or weak cards. However, you should keep in mind that a paradox exists here that opens up plenty of opportunity for reverse psychology. Since you have a small stack, your opponents will be less inclined to call or re-raise you if they're not holding very good cards.

This reason for this is the fact that they know you are not as likely to be bluffing with a small stack, and they will be reluctant to gamble against you with weaker cards since there is not much for them to gain. Therefore, your chances of making successful bluffs actually increase in situations like this. On the other hand, a player with a big stack might take this (rather small) risk in order to knock you out of the tournament. Your ability to read your opponents correctly is really tested at times like this.

Medium stack
Playing with a medium sized stack is actually much more difficult. When you have a medium sized stack you're forced to make a number of tricky decisions - you are trying to increase your stack to a big one but, at the same time, trying to avoid becoming short-stacked. Your poker skills are really tested in these situations. Generally, you should play more hands against the smaller stacks and avoid the bigger ones.

Big stack
Your stack is your primary weapon in a poker tournament and when it's big you have every chance of dominating the game. However, you must keep in mind that the other players will be expecting you to play more aggressively and will try to trap you in the hopes of doubling up. You should play aggressively but not carelessly. When you're stack is large, the gap gets bigger and you will be able to take more risks. Use your stack to put pressure on the other players by betting, raising and re-raising. But as mentioned, you should not get reckless. If you do, you will take unnecessary hits and might suddenly find yourself with a medium or small sized stack.

Source: WSOP

The New Poker Tournament Strategy Section

The following section in the blog is designed to provide you with tips and strategies in playing within a poker tournament. This is a 9 part section, that will be updated daily. Hopefully this will improve your game.

Tournaments and Ring Games Differences

Many experienced and skilled ring games players fail to adapt their strategies to tournaments and vice versa. These are some of the differences you have to consider when you make the switch from one playing form to another.

• All-ins before all the cards are dealt are common in poker tournaments. This is normally not a recommended strategy if you want to maximize your winnings in ring games.


• The participants in a poker tournament are eventually forced to take action since the stakes are regularly raised. It's easier to stick to a game plan when you're playing in a ring game.


• If you lose all your chips in a poker tournament you will be eliminated (if it's not a re-buy tournament). In a ring game you can buy more chips when you're cleaned out.


• In tournaments, the prize structure often influences the game. A player's actions will to somewhat depend on the size of his (or hers) stack size and what phase the tournament is in. When you're playing in a ring game your goal is to winning as much as possible in every single hand.


• In tournaments the tables are broken up as players are knocked out. As a result of this there is a constant shift of players. In a ring game you could very well be playing against the same players for a long time. However, if you're playing in a ring game online, you should be prepared for constantly changing games.

How You Play a Poker Tournament

Source: WSOP

There are many different types of poker tournaments. These are some basic tournament structure guidelines.

• All participants enter the tournament for the same cost (if it's not a free roll). This is known as the buy-in.
  
  
• The casino or poker room takes out an entry fee from all participating players (if it's not a free roll). If the buy-in is $60 the entry fee might be $6, making the total amount paid by the players in the tournament $66.
  
  
• In this case, if there are 100 players in the tournament, the total prize pool will be 100 x $60 = $6,000. The casino or poker room will take out a total sum of $600 in entry fees. That's how they profit from hosting tournaments.
  
  
• All participants will have the same number of chips at the beginning of the tournament. $1,000 or $1,500 are examples of common starting amounts.
  In a tournament with 100 participating players there will normally be ten tables with ten players each at the start.
  
  
• As the tournament progresses, the stakes (antes and/or blinds) are generally raised in 15-60 minute intervals.
  
  
• When a player loses all his chips he will be eliminated from the tournament (if it's not a re-buy tournament. In those a player has the chance of buying in again during a specified time period).
  
  
• As players get knocked out of the tournament, the tables are broken-up and re-configured and other participants are moved around. For instance, if there are ten players at one table and seven players on two others, two players from the ten-handed table might move to the seven-handed tables. This will result in three eight-handed tables.
  
  
• The tournament is over when one player has eliminated all his opponents and has all the chips. This lucky player will receive the first prize. In this example it would be 30% of $5,000 = $1,500.
  
  
• A common prize structure is to have a prize for about every ten players in the tournament. In this case (with 100 players), it might be 30% for first place followed by 20%, 13%, 10%, 7%, 6%, 5%, 4%, 3%, and 2% respectively. Ten prizes in total.
  
  More Tomorrow