TOURNAMENT STARTEGY IN POKER HOLDEM

 

The gradual increase of the blinds makes tournament play different from other kinds of poker, and in order to become a successful tournament player, you must understand and adapt to the effect of the blinds on the game. The constantly increasing blinds puts pressure on your chip stack and you must always adapt your style of play to your chip count, as well as to the chip count of your opponents. In tournaments, many players nowadays try to find situations where they can go all-in pre-flop with hands like AK or TT, in showdowns that amount to a coin-flip or 50/50 situations. For less experienced players, this could be a good strategy (because they avoid the risk of being outplayed after the flop), but a good player can often find far better odds and situations to outplay their opponents after the flop.

Winning a tournament solely on coin tosses where you go all-in requires a lot of luck. Winning a tournament at all requires a lot of luck, but you can influence how much luck you need to get paid in a tournament. These all-in players are also very focused on just winning the tournaments they do play. Going for first place is not necessarily the perfect strategy, however. In tournaments with big line-ups, where maybe ten percent of the players end up in the money, it may often be more profitable to focus on surviving for as long as possible, rather than unnecessarily risking your stack to win the tournament. This is because the player who ends up in fifth place gets more money in relation to his/her performance, than the player who ends up the winner.

Every tournament organiser has his/her own pay-out structure and not all of them can be mathematically perfect. In the perfect pay-out structure, all players in the money should receive money in accordance with his/her performance, or possibly the players who end up higher should receive a little bit more in relation to their performance than those who are knocked out earlier. If the winner receives 25 % after having knocked out 100 % of the opponents, the fifth place should receive 4.5 % after having knocked out approximately 19% of the opponents. But, normally, the pay-out structures do not look like that. Instead, they are weighted the other way. For example, the winner who knocked out 100 % of the other players gets 25 % of the prize pool, while the player ending up fifth, having knocked out 19 % of the other players, gets as much as 6 % of the prize pool. That is the normal structure, and therefore, it is mathematically correct to try to survive rather than try to win, as the risks you take are disproportionate to the gains you stand to make. There is more about this in the section on final stages of tournaments.

Whether your aim is to make as much money as possible or win as many tournaments as possible, depends on what you want to get out of playing poker; money or glory. If you play a hundred tournaments with a hundred players in each, as a rule, it is more profitable to end up in fifth place ten times, than winning twice. The fact that so many tournament players let their egos control their bankrolls, or have not grasped the mathematics behind the pay-out structures, could benefit you if you are prepared to play for places in the money, rather than winning.

 

INITIAL STAGE

The gradual increase of the blinds makes tournament play different from other kinds of poker, and in order to become a successful tournament player, you must understand and adapt to the effect of the blinds on the game. The constantly increasing blinds puts pressure on your chip stack and you must always adapt your style of play to your chip count, as well as to the chip count of your opponents. In tournaments, many players nowadays try to find situations where they can go all-in pre-flop with hands like AK or TT, in showdowns that amount to a coin-flip or 50/50 situations. For less experienced players, this could be a good strategy (because they avoid the risk of being outplayed after the flop), but a good player can often find far better odds and situations to outplay their opponents after the flop.

Winning a tournament solely on coin tosses where you go all-in requires a lot of luck. Winning a tournament at all requires a lot of luck, but you can influence how much luck you need to get paid in a tournament. These all-in players are also very focused on just winning the tournaments they do play. Going for first place is not necessarily the perfect strategy, however. In tournaments with big line-ups, where maybe ten percent of the players end up in the money, it may often be more profitable to focus on surviving for as long as possible, rather than unnecessarily risking your stack to win the tournament. This is because the player who ends up in fifth place gets more money in relation to his/her performance, than the player who ends up the winner.

Every tournament organiser has his/her own pay-out structure and not all of them can be mathematically perfect. In the perfect pay-out structure, all players in the money should receive money in accordance with his/her performance, or possibly the players who end up higher should receive a little bit more in relation to their performance than those who are knocked out earlier. If the winner receives 25 % after having knocked out 100 % of the opponents, the fifth place should receive 4.5 % after having knocked out approximately 19% of the opponents. But, normally, the pay-out structures do not look like that. Instead, they are weighted the other way. For example, the winner who knocked out 100 % of the other players gets 25 % of the prize pool, while the player ending up fifth, having knocked out 19 % of the other players, gets as much as 6 % of the prize pool. That is the normal structure, and therefore, it is mathematically correct to try to survive rather than try to win, as the risks you take are disproportionate to the gains you stand to make. There is more about this in the section on final stages of tournaments.

Whether your aim is to make as much money as possible or win as many tournaments as possible, depends on what you want to get out of playing poker; money or glory. If you play a hundred tournaments with a hundred players in each, as a rule, it is more profitable to end up in fifth place ten times, than winning twice. The fact that so many tournament players let their egos control their bankrolls, or have not grasped the mathematics behind the pay-out structures, could benefit you if you are prepared to play for places in the money, rather than winning.

 

 

MIDDLE STAGE

One to two hours into the tournament, the size of the blinds come to a point where they are quite high in relation to the average stack. If you, by that time, have a bigger than average stack, it will usually pay off to play a few more hands than previously, stealing a blind or two. It also becomes more important to defend your own blinds. However, the game becomes more aggressive in general, so be aware of the other players being able to see through you if you play too aggressively. Because of that, it is important to change pace and try not to appear as too aggressive, as an aggressive image will encourage your opponents to go up against you. If you are perceived as aggressive, you risk being forced to gamble your stack in 50/50 situations, which is far from advisable.

With a large stack, you should also focus on attacking small stacks. Players with small stacks have far less room to manoeuvre when defending their blinds, most of the time they will be forced to fold and when they have a hand they usually go all-in pre-flop. If your stack is large enough in relation to the small stacks, and the small stacks small enough in relation to the blinds, you often have good pot odds for attacking them, even if you are the underdog against their all-ins. Large stacks, however, should be avoided. You do not want to find yourself in a situation where you risk your entire stack, unless you have a real monster of a hand, as you run the risk of being knocked out of the tournament.

With an average stack, you should above all be careful about playing speculative hands, like small pairs and suited connectors, and you should be especially careful about playing Ax suited, unless the kicker is high. In the middle of the tournament, when the blinds are getting bigger, you rarely get the pot odds to call such hands (but if you do get the pot odds with a speculative hand, normally in late position, you should go for it). Most pots after the initial stage are played short-handed and therefore, if you are short-stacked, you should stick to hands that play well in a shorthanded game. With a very large stack, you can gamble a bit with speculative hands in order to break other players, but with an average hand you do best to stay out of trouble.

If you have a short stack, however, a stack smaller than 10xBB, you have fewer options available. If you play a hand, you are practically always pot-committed if there was a raise pre-flop, and there almost always is. Therefore, you need to wait for an opportunity to go all-in pre-flop and, preferably, it should be you doing the all-in move. In that situation, you should wait for a hand that stands up against a single opponent. When you go all-in with a short stack, you will get called more often than not. Many players choose to go all-in with hands like A7 and 44. The wisdom of choosing such hands it debatable. When you go all-in you would like to have odds better than 30-70, preferably 50-50 or better. But when you go all-in with, say, A6 there is a significant risk of being called by someone with A10 for example, and then the odds are 30-70. If you go all-in with 22, you take an even bigger risk. The opponent who calls will always have at least two overcards, which is a 50-50 situation. But, more often, he has an overpair, giving you odds of 20-80. Going all-in with a 50-50 hand should be avoided, preferably you should be a favourite to win. Therefore you should wait until you get a better hand, pair of eights or better, alternatively A with J kicker or better.

Even if you are not the favourite going all-in, it is always better not to be sharing any cards with the other player. A6 against A10 is among the worst situations to be in, only topped by a pair against an overpair. If your stack is getting so small that it is no longer possible to use it for scaring the others, it can be better going all-in with a hand that rarely share any cards with the potential caller, but that rarely is a favourite either. We recommend rather going all-in with 67 suited than with A6 suited if your stack goes below 5xBB, because you would rather be an underdog at 40-60 than sharing a card with your opponent, but whether that is a correct strategy or not is controversial.

How long you should wait is also a source of contention and depends on how aggressive the table is. If you wait too long before going all-in, you lose the possibility of getting other players to fold before the flop, as it costs very little for them to call you, and losing your entire stack on paying blinds is among the most inglorious ways of losing a poker tournament. If the game is fairly tame, you can lower your requirements for all-in hands somewhat, and hope to steal a blind.

Another opportunity to be on the look-out for is situations where you get good pot odds even with a bad hand. If, for example, two short stacks and a large stack go all-in before you, chances are that you are getting good pot odds to call, even with a bad hand. If you have, say 67 suited, and the other three players are holding AT, JQ suited and AK suited, you have (assuming you have your own suit) a 26.6% chance of winning the hand. If there is an extra blind in the pot, you are getting good pot odds, and if you win the hand you will have a larger stack than if you had won an all-in against only one opponent.

Another similar situation may be if two people have limped in and called BB, upon which a large stack has raised or gone all-in. In that situation, it is fairly probable that you will be the only caller, and then it may be worth going all-in with a fairly bad hand because of the pot odds generated by the abandoned blinds. Say you have a stack of 10,000, and the blinds are 1000/2000. If two people have called the BB, there is 7,000 in the pot including the antes, if there are nine people at the table. If a player then goes all-in with 40,000 chips before it is your turn to act, it will cost you 10,000 to play for a pot of 27,000 (7,000+10,000+ your 10,000), the pot odds are 17.9-10. It may be worth calling even with a hand as bad as 48 off suit, if you think nobody will call behind you, because even if you are up against an AK suited you have a 32% chance of winning. Those odds are not really good enough to call, but with a short stack it may be difficult to find a better opportunity. And if you are holding 67 suited against AK off suit, you have a 42% chance of winning, or 4-6, which are good odds.

 

FINAL STAGE

Just before the money, in most tournaments, the game gets a bit tighter, in spite of the fact that the blinds structure at that stage would motivate fairly (or very) active play. If you have a large stack, you can make use of the fact that many short-stacked players are unwilling to get knocked out before the money, and steal a blind or two. The same thing applies to some extent if you have an average stack, but be careful; many of the large stacks often re-raises pre-flop if you try to steal from a middle position. Therefore you should make sure you have a fairly good hand when you raise pre-flop with an average stack, or be prepared to fold. However, folding your cards after having raised at this stage, is not fun, as your pre-flop raise often carves quite a large hole in your stack. Prepare for an all-out war over the poor little blinds.

If you are short-stacked, it may be necessary to change your strategy at the final stage of the tournament, compared to how you played in the middle of it. This is particularly true for Internet tournaments where you are able to keep track of your opponents. When it is possible to keep track of all the other small stacks, it may advantageous to do so all the way from when there are a handful of players left outside the money, until when you are heads-up for the tournament. At this stage there is a lot of money to be had for the skilled survivor.

For example: imagine there are 51 players left in the tournament and 50 gets paid. You hace a chip count of 15,000 and the blinds are 2000/4000. So YOU are short-stacked; you have barely four times the big blind, and in this situation in the middle or beginning of a tournament, you would go in with almost anything if an opportunity presented itself. But you have just posted your blind and will be able to play seven hands before having to post the big blind again. Now, there are four other players whose cip count is lower than yours. The two smallest stsacks have only 4,600 and 5,200 in chips respectively, and both will be in the blinds within three hands. Hence, there is a good probability that one of them will be knocked out shortly, which will put you in the money. Even if you get AK suited in the next hand, it would probagbly be advisable to fold it instead of going all in, which would be the normal course of action. Places 50-41 all pay the same amount, and even if you double up with AK suited, you will still be short-stacked, and probabilities are not so much better that you will reach the final table or get more money than you get for places 50-41, for it to be worth playing AK suited. However, if you you’re your hand, you are more or less guaranteed a place in the money.

You can use this line of reasoning for every place in the money where the prize increases. If you are skilled at keeping track of the other short stacks, and have a bit of luck, you can sometimes end up on the final table, and even win a tournament, without ever unnecessarily risking your stack at a stage where the prize goes up after one more player is knocked out.

 

FINAL TABLE

At the final table, the prize increases significantly for every player that is knocked out and surviving is a vital skill. At the same time, the table will get short-handed as soon as a couple of players have been knocked out, and the blinds will become an even heavier burden to bear as they will have to be posted more and more frequently, and the players are forced to play more hands. The final table is akin to tightrope walking, no matter how big a chip stack you have, but tactics, of course, vary slightly depending on the size of your stack. With a small stack, tactics are not markedly different from the earlier stage of the finals, aside from one small detail.

As a rule, doubling up on the final table is more valuable, as the prizes now increase significantly for every place you climb, instead of only increasing a little bit for every ten places, like previously in the tournament. Therefore, it is more difficult do decide whether to go all-in with a good hand in order to double up, or to wait and go up against a smaller stack. Sometimes on a final table, it may be worth waiting out stacks bigger than your own, if the players with those stacks play sloppily and gamble a lot. If the other players play good solid poker, however, it is probably better to be more aggressive, and try to double up.

If your stack is average to large, it is mostly a question of waiting for a good opportunity. As usual when you have a good-sized stack, it is mostly about shooting down the small stacks when you have a decent hand, and attacking larger stacks than you own, only if you have a really good hand. If you lose a pot with a good hand, you always want to give yourself an opportunity to come back. But if you lose your entire stack holding AA, there is nothing to do but cursing your bad luck and trying again in the next tournament instead. A good way of practising for the final table is to play Sit & Go tournaments.

 

HOW TO PLAY REBUY TOURNAMENTS

As a rule, in re-buy tournaments you can buy new chips during the first hour, either if you run out or if you fall below a certain limit. After the end of the re-buy period, there is usually an add-on, where you can buy extra chips, no matter the size of your stack. Whether to make re-buys or add-ons is a consideration for each individual player. As a rule, the correct number of re-buys depend on the opposition, and on how many re-buys, on average, the other players are doing. If the other players are a bit wild and sloppy, making plenty of re-buys, it is often best to play tight and make few re-buys. There are two reasons for this; one: that you are paying a smaller share of the winning pot than the other players for the same chance of winning; and two: the other players are probably playing very loose if they are making a lot of re-buys, and you are better off waiting for good hands. If you wait for good hands at such a table, you rarely have to make re-buys. If the opponents are playing badly, if they push in their stacks with bad hands too often, and your favourite hands are outdrawn time and time again, forcing you to buy new chips, then of course you should do so. But you do not have to take unnecessary chances and gamble excessively in order to build a large stack early on, just because it is a re-buy tournament.

On the other hand, if the game is passive, it may be worth taking bigger risks and gambling a bit, risking having to make re-buys, because if you have a large stack after the break in a tournament where play is relatively tight, you will benefit more from your large stack compared to a tournament with more aggressive play.

Your stack size should dictate whether to make an add-on or not. If an add-on does not sufficiently affect your stack in relation to its cost, it is not worth taking. For example, if you have 15,000 in chips, having only made one re-buy earlier, and an add-on would give you another 2,000 in chips, it is hardly worth making. If you do make that add-on, you double your buy-in in order to increase your stack by 13%. On the other hand, if you have 8,000 in chips remaining, having made three re-buys, an add-on of 2,000 in chips is well worth making, as you increase your buy-in and your chip stack by the same figure, i.e. 25%.

 

Other Poker Texas Hold'em Lessons:

 

01. STRATEGIES INTRODUCTION
02. LIMIT AND NO LIMIT HOLDEM
03. CHOOSING TABLE
04. POSITION AND STARTING HANDS
05. POT ODDS - IMPLIED POT ODDS
06. COUNTING OUTS
07. BETTING
08. SLOWPLAYING
09. BANKROLL MANAGEMENT
10. TYPES OF PLAYERS
11. TOURNAMENT PLAY
12. PLAYER CHARACTERISTICS

 

 

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