11- 4-04, LearnTexasHoldem:

Tourney Advice Based On Holdem Stats

Question: I'm retired and enjoy learning how to play holdem. My problem is when I play online tournaments I usually finish in the top 20% to 30% but at the end when blinds and ante's go up I run out of money and end up having to go all-in on stupid card's. In the small tournaments I play I might get my entry fee back. Can you tell me by looking at my stats what you think I need to do different to place higher? I check the stats after every tournament and they look like clones. Thank's for any help you can give me.

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Answer: Thanks for the question. Let me start off by saying that I can only help you so much by looking at these stats alone. I'll do my best but online holdem stats can be deceiving. Let me give you an example: Often times the best days I have (money wise) are not the days when I win many pots but when I take down a few large ones. That isn't represented in these numbers. I may lose 90% of my showdowns but then the 10% that I do win are huge pots. Now for some notes on the stats:
  1. I see that you are folding 71% of the time preflop. That's fine. My guess is that you are playing pretty tightly.
  2. A 0% for folding on the river may be troublesome if these data represented a large number of hands. If this is just a smaller tourney that you didn't get that many hands, then it is fine but if you were playing for quite sometime at a NL holdem table and never folded on the river, you would be playing less than ideal poker. Most of the time NL holdem betting is relative to the size of the pot, hence river bets would be quite large. If you always commit yourself to calling on the end, you are giving away too much money.
  3. I'm not sure what ideal number would look like for checking, calling, raising and betting but it seems as though the checking and calling numbers are a little too high compared with your betting and raising. My guess is that you are playing pretty tight poker but at the same time not being that aggressive. That is also probably why you aren't ending up at the final table with many chips.

I think what you need to do is to play a little tougher and more aggressively. This isn't easy to do, especially if you are just learning, but it is an essential skill if you want to consistently win. The top poker players, both in tournament and ring play, know how to make money in marginal situations. A professional tournament poker player isn't afraid of crashing and burning; instead, they realize that playing safe will only take you so far and at the end of the day, the person who comes out on top is the person who was able to make good plays in bad spots.

What I just recommended is a tall order so let me give you a few concrete areas to spend sometime building:

  1. Aggression works much better with position so learn how to steal blinds now and then.
  2. Learn some tricks for sucking people in so you are able to win big pots. Play around with different betting amounts so that you can confuse people into making poor decisions.
  3. Master the bluff and semi-bluff and don't be afraid to use it. The more you bluff the less potent they are and the more likely you'll get picked off so use them sparingly. The next time you play, watch every hand even if you aren't in it and then try to pick spots when you or other players might have bluffed to have won the hand. If you get called and lose, don't despair. Not all bluffs work and not all bluffs that don't work are useless.
  4. Getting a better grasp on what table image is (how the other players view your play). Try to use that to your advantage.
  5. Remember the concept of initiative. A person who only checks and calls has only one way to win: to show down the best hand. A person who bets can win in two ways: he can show the best hand or make the other person call. Initiative is huge in holdem, especially no limit.

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