11-23-04, LearnTexasHoldem:
Tournament Strategy
I have started playing tournaments lately and with the tips on this site have been doing pretty well....
I play 10 player tournaments for about £10-20 entry fee and seem to either get into the last 3 (paid positions) or bum out in about 7th place.
I feel confident that I know how to play when I'm in the last 4 or 5 people and start to become a little more aggressive and loosen up as I understand that you are more likely to have the best hand with slighly weaker hands and this generally helps me to win some money.
Top 3 Beginner Rooms
At this stage in the tournament one mistake can really cost you and I get unsure about what hands to play, I know theoretically any hand I would normally play would have a better chance of winning but my problem is this...
I tend to win a few large pots with either straights or flushes and not much with other hands so when nobody is calling it makes it bad pot odds to call with potential flush hands like Q8s or potential straights like 89 for example. I start to get cagey about betting and playing hands because when the blinds are so high if you have to fold when you've invested a bit of money it really hurts. Also I get the impression you are more open to being bluffed off the pot by the big stacks since they can apply pressure knowing you will have to go all in to call them.
I guess these later more pressured stages are what sorts the good players from the pros,but it seems a really tricky fine line between getting bled dry by the blinds from not betting and from being eliminated on one hand.
Sorry if this is a bit long winded but any suggestions on how I should adpat my game at this point would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Luke Oldfield
Answer: I think what would help you become a better tournament player is to adjust your perspective a bit on when you feel forced into playing (when you feel cornered). At some point everyone realizes that they are going to have to go all-in or the blinds will eat them up. What I would suggest is that you don't wait too long because what happens is that you end up becoming insignificant; in other words even if you do go all-in it really doesn't matter.
Your raises need to still have some punch to be of any use. You may say, "well if I went all-in any sooner then I could have been busted out sooner," and that is true but you need to adopt more of a crash and burn strategy for tournament play. Your goal in these little tourneys is to have enough chips at the end to make a go at winning. Busting out 1st or 7th makes no difference, you still lost. When you look back at your previous tourneys you want to either be close to winning or be a complete loser -- too many in between games and you are probably not playing aggressively enough.
That brings me to my next point. Regardless of whether you have a large stack or a small stack, you don't want to be a caller. You want to be the person who is making the other guy think if he wants to call. Take a hand where you are heads up at the final table with the small stack and you have J4 against your opponents 85.
The first person to move the chips in wins the hand. Allowing the opponents to dictate the raising forces you to call with a decent hand (which you can't afford to do if you are short on chips). Be aggressive and leverage your short stack against them. Force them to call you with a decent hand.
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