Tournament Adjustments

[PokerNeal]

These observations are my own and not necessarily from any book or poker pundit even though there are some common things that everyone touts.


1. Play only with a premium hand.

2. Do not slow-play a high pair.

3. Limp in with a low pocket pair. If you get lucky and catch a set -- milk the table for all it is worth.

4. Don't play suited or unsuited connectors. In a tourney -- they are a losing proposition.

5. As a general rule do not chase a flush draw, a straight draw beyond the flop unless a> the pot is big giving you enough odds AND b> the cost of continuing on is not too damaging to your stack.

6. From the SB do not put in that extra chip(s) just to see what the flop is and hope to get lucky. More often than not you will feel yourself tied to a pot that you had no business being there in the first place and damage your stack.

6. Careful of games you get into because you happened to be in the BB. More often than not you will end up playing in pots you had no business of being in the first place. Statistically, it is proven that SB and BB positions lead to involuntary participation resulting in bad plays and significant damage to the stack.

7. At the late stages of the tourney you must steal the blinds at least once every two hands. This is best accomplished from mid-to-late positions. There should be no bets before you and the stacks that act after you need to be moderate-size stacks. The reason is because a low stack who is waiting for any hand will take this as a cue to go all-in and now you are faced with the prospect of actually fighting it out with this guy. A high stack is likely to take you on if he/she has even a semi-decent hand. Stealing blinds means just that -- "stealing" w/o a fight. Oh, yes, to not invite a fight your bet needs to be between 2.5 to 3X the BB.

8. Arrogance will damage your stack. A bigger stack does not mean that you drop your guard and start playing questionable hands.

9. Develop that instinct that gives you that queasy feeling you are beat even when you seem to have the upper hand. Lay it down and wait to fight it out in another hand. If you are wrong use that experience to fine-tune your instinct.

10. Lastly, there is such a thing as a run of good cards. Sometimes you are starved of decent hand for what seems like an eternity and you start thinking about dropping your standards and start playing sub-standard hands. Fight this temptation. Lady luck will smile at you and when you get your run of cards you can double/triple your stack in just a few minutes. Preserve your ammunition because you need in in these times.

11. Lastly, badbeats will happen and you have to take it in the proper spirit. In a game of chance anything can happen. Also, there are times when in spite of your best play you just don't seem to get anywhere. Be happy that you played a good game. This happens to the very best of the poker players.

[shadow29]

I object to 3,4,5.

I feel by concretely following these rules you will set yourself up for losing a lot of money by playing too tightly. Sometimes you want to raise with 55 in mid-late position, just so that your raise does not necessarily mean AA. Moreover, the most important thing in tourneys is position, imo. If you raise from mid-late position, it might get checked back to you, allowing you to take the pot.

Suited connectors can be quite valuable, especially if you know you are up against a tight, unimaginative player. 65s does very well against big cards and you can bluff a tight player when an unhelpful board comes to him.

Also- does 4 mean you can't play AKs?

I sometimes bet a flush draw, especially the nut flush draw. Generally in NL tourneys you don't have very good odds for flushes, as the bets get quite large. However, I feel if you bet your flush draws you can either a) win the pot right there b) make your flush or c) be beat. I'm rambling now.

[PokerNeal]

Good points.

What I posted were "general" rules to making it far in a tourney. I believe that you can at least make it to "pay" following my guidelines. However, they will not take you to the final table w/o doing the sort of plays you are talking about.

Until you reach the mid-to-late stage -- you really are not ready to make sophisticated plays. In the first 1/3rd of the time nearly 2/3rd of the field gets eliminated and you are left with a higher caliber of players against whom you can make sophisticated plays. For example your serious bet with an A-K won't be called by a dufus holding A-2 and he is lucky enough to bust your stack.

One more thing in a big online tourney is that there is so much table churn. You have little time to discern and make sophisticted plays against players you have no idea how they play. Later, however, as churn stabilizes a lot of sophisticated plays can be made.

[PokerNeal]

I thought this over last night and have this to say.

Regular ring game strategies often fall flat on their face in a multi-table NLH tourney with a large number of entrants until at least the mid-to-late stages when higher caliber players are left. The dead money needs to leave the tables. This post is with reference to my earlier post in which I detailed a tourney strategy as well as elaborating on my reluctance in playing suited connectors or draw hands... or overbetting A-K -- at least until mid-late stages.... At least one poster disagreed with this....

This I say with only a few months worth of experience playing in online tourneys. I am by no means an accomplished tourney player and have had only moderate success as I try and find my own zen....

I am sure a lot will disagree but there may be some that will agree with this.

[Troy92]

Don't be afraid of being short-stacked!

One of the biggest problems I see from otherwise decent players is panic of falling behind in chips. You need to keep a level head and look for the right spots to attack.