Poker

Poker Tournaments

If you’re a good cash-game player, remember this before you go on to apply the same kind of approach in tournaments: there are several differences between tournament and cash play. Only when you’re truly comfortable with all those differences do you stand a chance to be equally successful in tournaments too. Some people can never adapt: tournament attitude is something they cannot find a place for in their nature.

Why do you need to play in tourneys in the first-place? Because that’s where the real money is, and because they offer a set of advantages over cash games.

The money is in tournaments because a relatively small investment can yield an out-of proportion huge payout. STTs less so, but still, you get he chance to double up your initial investment just by beating seven more people. Beat 9 and you get to triple it, that’s still a very good deal.

In MTTs, for a few dollars in buy-in, you can literally gain hundreds, or possibly thousands of dollars, depending on how good a money position you land in.

While cash games take rake on each and every hand you play, in a tournament all you pay is a tournament fee, which is collected upon registration. Other than that, regardless of how many hands you have to play, you pay nothing. A good rakeback deal can take a lot of pressure off your cash-game bankroll though and balance the situation a bit.

In a cash game, you have to win if you intend to take home any money. Every single hand is a separate battle which costs you money to join, and which you feel forced to win in order to fulfill the purpose of the game.

In a tournament, you don’t necessarily have to walk away a winner to make money. All you need to do is reach one of the money positions, and you’ll probably have earned several times your buy-in.

In this respect, experts categorize tournament players into two classes: foxes and farmers. A fox is supposed to be a player who acts aggressively with one goal in mind: victory. A farmer is a player whose aim is to drag out the hostilities until he lands in the money, then close shop.

From my own experience, I found that a combination of the two is the most efficient approach to the game. Act like a farmer until you reach your goal. That achieved, turn into a fox and – with nothing to lose – go for all the marbles.

Whichever character you choose to slip into, there are a few things you should always bear in mind. The all-in is a decision that comes with an added negative EV in tournament poker, however, it can also be a powerful weapon. Start the tournament slowly. Act very tight in the beginning not only because I say so, and because Sklansky says that the smaller the blinds the tighter you should play, but also because it is common sense: things can degenerate into an all-in easily in the opening stages of a tourney. By letting yourself be dragged into one such all–in, you’ll have to deal with a situation in which there’s not really a lot you can win, but you can lose everything.

Always keep cool and keep an eye on the size of your stack. The number of big blinds plus small blinds left in your stack dictates how tight or lose you need to act at any one stage in a tournament.

As the blinds get bigger, you need to gradually loosen up.

One more thing: it’ll often happen that you’ll have to attempt to make a comeback from the brink of extinction. In this situation, when you have your back against the wall (you have about 1 BB+SB left in your stack) do not commit the mistake most people do, namely to go for “full value”.

Look for a raiser ahead who scares everyone out but yourself. This is the ideal situation to hit the all-in button. When your condition is so dire, would you rather see your last few chips go up against a single hand or would you see them being thrown to a whole pack of hungry lions instead?

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