advice on learning tournament play - - - books,sites, ect.

[orbie]

I experienced my first tournament. And would like any advice on the premium books to read, sites that can help my play, software available for toutnees, and the better websites to practice tournee play at a moderate cost.

All advice is always appreciated- ORBIE

[cferejohn]

You don't mention what type of tournament you played/want to play in (i.e. Limit, No Limit, Hold'em, etc.).

Anyway, Books:

Sklansky has written a book on tournaments that I found very useful (Tournament Poker for Advanced Players). Two-plus-two released another book on tournaments (Poker Tournament Strategies), but frankly, I didn't find it very useful (though it does talk about all the different tournament structures you might find; that may be useful to you).

Obviously, any of the books available on the game you are playing in the tournament will be useful. I haven't found a no-limit book I love yet, but I found the Bob Ciaffone/Stewart Ruben pot-limit/no-limit book to be thought provoking (especially the hand quizzes), and it does have a brief section on tournament adaptations. The no-limit stuff in Super/System is interesting (if difficult to read due to its arbitrary use of boldface., but could very well get you in trouble if you play that aggressively in a tournament (Brunson says as much towards the back of the section).

Sites - PokerStars has by far the most tournaments available. I also like the way their tournaments are sturctured, particularly the 1 and 2 table sit-n-go's, which at many other sites escalate in limits so fast that they very quickly become a crapshoot). Pokerstars has several freeroll tournaments a day plus frequent $20, $10, and even $2 buy in tournaments (which are usually satellites to a freeroll at a later date).