Tournament Strategy – Part 1

Tournament strategy

“What’s the right way to play in a live tournament, or in an online poker tournament?”

There is no such thing as a correct way to play in a poker tournament. In fact, the most important thing to realise is that best strategy changes greatly with the different phases of the tournament. We’ll take a look in the next two articles at what opportunities the different phases bring:

At the start of the tournament

Early in a tournament, you will not have had time to feel out the play of the other players. Whilst this remains the case, it is best not to play too aggressively, and not to be too tricky.

It is true of any tournament that there are a number of bad players around the table, against whom it is very difficult to bluff. When the blinds are small, the right style of play is to:-

•  Only raise with the premium hands, nothing any weaker than  or . You will almost always get action at the low stakes from at least one player, and so you do not want to be aggressive with marginal hands.

•  Aim to get into pots with speculative hands, if you can do so cheaply. With poor players around, you can be paid off handsomely if you do hit a big flop. Hands even as weak as , or  are worth playing to try to hit gold, as long as you will get away from them if you hit a more marginal piece of the flop.

• With the biggest pairs, like  or , be very careful about letting people in too cheaply. Let’s say the blinds start at 25-50 in a big 10,000 starting stack tournament. It may be tempting to price people in with a small raise, say to 150, but this is a bad idea as it gives players good odds to try to crack your hand. You should either be prepared to play these hands very carefully after the flop, or preferably make people invest a good proportion of their stack before it.

As the play develops

Now the tournament is a few blind levels in. You have a decent feel for how everyone plays, and may have started to pick up some reads. This is how best to use your knowledge:-

• There will still be some weak calling station type players around; one or two may even have big stacks after getting lucky with previous bad calls. These players present the biggest opportunity to you at this developing stage of the tournament:

-You should be sniffing out opportunities to play suited connectors like , or small pairs like  against them. Do not bother raising with these hands before the flop, and do not try to be aggressive with them on the flop if you have not hit. All your value comes from the occasions where they turn into a big hand, and the calling station cannot get away.
-Position is not nearly as important against these players, as your hope is simply to start with a big hand, or to flop one.

• Another player you should really home in on is the tight or scared player.
  You may have seen them talk themselves into passing when the action develops to a high level, and show other players a little too much respect. Take advantage of this knowledge in the following ways:-

- Use position to make big raises with a marginal hand when the tight player has limped into the pot. They are probably hoping to see a cheap flop, and may well be willing to pass to a raise.

- If one of these players has raised, try a small re-raise in position. They may well call, but will do so resigned to the fact that they are behind with a hand like .  If they do not hit a big flop, it does not even have to be a very big bet to make them pass their hand. The threat of having to face bets on later streets combines with the force of the re-raise before the flop to make these players willing to pass.

• You will unfortunately also have noticed the aggressive, tricky
  players. They are probably the best players at the table. However, you can still carve out some advantages if you play the right way against them:

You must deny them the kind of opportunities that you yourself are trying to seize from weaker players. Avoid

-  Limping into pots with a marginal hand where they have a good position,
and may try to raise you out.

-  Getting into a situation where you may have to make a give-away weak bet
or a check. Let’s say you hold   , and your raise before the flop is called by an aggressive player on the button. The flop comes    , and your bet is called. A blank  comes on the turn, and you have a problem. If you check now, the tricky player will correctly read you for weakness, and see his opportunity to pick up the pot. He may have you beat, but he may also have a drawing hand like  or . However, if he bets, it will be very difficult for you to call.

This is not an easy situation to avoid, but one way of doing so would be to yourself bet strongly again on the turn. The opponent will not have odds to call a pot-sized bet with a drawing hand. Moreover, he may well make the mistake of throwing away a marginal hand like  or , despite actually having you beat.

This situation of the betting the flop, being called and checking the turn, is one of the strongest signs to a good player that you have a marginal hand. Here we are averting the danger by turning our marginal hand into a bluff.

Of course, you may actually have a strong hand against this type of player, and want action from them. In this case, present them with the kind of opportunity you have seen them pick up on to steal pots.

Let’s say you raise with , and hit a great flop of  . A check may arouse suspicion with the good player that you have flopped something big. Instead, reverse their trap onto them by making the weak looking move of the bet then check.