Tournament Poker Strategy Part 1

The early game
Tournament Poker is different from the usual ring game and you may need to change the style of play as the number of participants decreases and stack increases in the tournament. This is the first article in a series about playing poker in tournaments.
We have seen the pros play on the final tables in the big tournaments. On the Web is a host tournaments with big money in the pot to the winners. Tournament Poker on TV is one of the main reasons for the poker boom of recent years. A tournament winnings in a bigger contest has been the beginning of many a brilliant poker career.

Tournament Poker is different from cashgame games. Each player starts with the same amount of chips, and the difference from a cashgame so the blinds are not static, but they increase during the tournament. This means that the strategy also changed over time. Playing in the same way towards the end of a tournament that in the beginning is nothing but suicidal. This article will examine the first three or four levels, when the average stack compared with the blinds are still relatively high.

There are two viable strategies for the early stages. You can either play loose or tight.

If we choose to play loose early, our games that resemble cashgame games. We will call with marginal hands, as Suite One-gappers and the like, when we have position advantage. Are we first into the pot so we raise all the hands that we are playing pre-flop. If all settles and we are sitting in late position opens, we sometimes very loosely, perhaps with something as bad as 64o. We play our draft hard and aggressive and have nothing against gambling for the whole stack when we think we have an advantage, how marginal it may be.

If we choose to play tight, so are we waiting for good cards. Yes, we will continue to play suited connectors and small and medium high pocket pair in position, but our main objective is to calmly consider the opponent and strike when we have very good cards. The most we will throw before the flop, but once we play a hand so we play it aggressively. We try to avoid coinflips and unnecessary risk takers.

The solving strategy leads to more often is eliminated from the tournament early (which is only logical), but the few times we get longer as we have often a large stack. The tight strategy, which focuses more on survival, will more often to get to the middle phase of the tournament, but our stack will often be comparatively less.

How should I play? Loose or tight?

It depends on one's own style and personality. Find out what style of play that gives you the most success and work to optimize it. But forget all means not to have an eye on the table! If, for example, we prefer a loose style of play early in the tournament, but it turns out that we ended up on a table full of maniacs who set preflop each and every hand - yes, then there is not much else to do than to wait for a monster hand !

Such is poker - you have to be prepared to change strategy if circumstances so require, but we must also have developed a solid base strategy that they enjoy and mastered.