Posts Tagged ‘poker-bluff’
Playing in tournaments
As with everything in poker, there are many different strategies that you can use to approach a tournament. As a beginner, you will probably focus more on the technicalities of the game and as time goes by and you get more experienced, you will start focusing more on the psychological side. Your style of play will be refined. In a tournament, you should be prepared to call more small bets in order to see the flop, since there is a real hurry to make a decent hand quickly in order to get you off to a good start. You may have a less limited strategy and not restrict the starting hands to what you would typically do in a cash game. It might be too restrictive and you may even run out of chips before you see good hands 
EARLY IN THE TOURNAMENT
In a nutshell, in the early stages of the tournament, be aggressive, raise substantially, be prepared to bluff if you have to , but don’t risk all the chips unless you really have to or know that you have the nuts. There is of course much more bluffing going around in a tournament than you would find in a cash game. The reason for this is that you simply don’t have the time to wait for good hands. The pressure is high from the start and you need to grow your pile of chips as soon as possible. You can only do this if you actively apply pressure from the very first hand. Usually you will find that, during the first few hands when the blinds are still low, many players like to wait for good starting hands to try to get them off to a winning start. It is therefor likely that most players would rather wait for good hands and fold more often than get involved. Some players use the All-in weapon frequently at this stage. Ok, so maybe the person holds an AA or maybe they are on a complete bluff. In any case, 99% of the time, everyone folds and they make a small profit. However, the risk/reward factor in this instance is just way out of proportion and often such aggressive play leaves the player with egg on their face. Rather leave the bluffing up to more experienced players until you feel comfortable taking calculated bluffing risks. You need to take many factors into consideration, for example your position at the table. Trying to bluff from early position is way more risky than bluffing from late position.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TOURNAMENT
The middle of the tournament is usually more or less at the break. It is of course difficult to establish exactly at what point the middle is, but it will usually be after the first 1 or 2 hours. During the break you will also have the opportunity to buy-in or add-on to your chips, depending on the type of tournament you play in. This is not compulsory and I have seen many players winning a tournament on the original buy-in. At this point in the tournament, you should feel more settled in. It is essential to keep the main goal in mind and that is to add to your chipstack because, with the Blinds rising continuously, you will soon start losing ground. If you want to work out how you are doing, you can do the following simple calculation: Take the number of competitors who entered the event and multiply that with the number of chips with which each one started. Then assess how many people remain and divide those chips by the remaining players. That will give you the average chip count against which you can benchmark your own performance. Due to the nature of tournaments and the fact that the Blinds keep on going up, you will find that by this time, and scaringly so, even to just call a basic bet will cost a large amount of chips. It is important that you adjust your mindframe accordingly. Think of the chips as tokens rather than in a money value. When you had 1000 chips, you were prepared to call 50 chips (one twentieth of your total) or make a raise of 200. Now that you have, say 4000, you must be prepared to call for 200, or make a raise of 800, because that is still the same proportion of your chips. Actually, to stay in the game you need to increase the proportion of chips that you are prepared to risk. You need to get your head around this one. You have to be fearless. Remember, the chips are just a way of keeping score. They are not yours and you cannot chas them in for money until you have survived until the end and made the final table and or winning spots. As the tournament moves on, and the Blinds rise and Players become short-stacked, they become more and more desperate to enter the action and try to double up. Focus on these Players and try to knock them out. There are 3 reasons for this: firstly they will take more risks because time is running out for them and they may play hands that they would not ordinarily play; secondly, even if they win the pot, because they are short of chips they don’t have enough to knock you out of the event; thirdly, you need their chips!!
TOWARDS THE END OF THE TOURNAMENT
At the end of the tournament the blinds and the size of the pots are very high and this may make a more inexperienced Player very nervous. Just remember, you are not playing with cash, you are playing with tokens – it is merely a way of keeping score. Be fearless and aggressive and continue to abide by all the basic strategies that you have decided on. As you gain more and more experience, you will hone your strategies. Keep to them, tweek and change them again, keep to them. Players will play dodgy hands from time to time, they will bluff you out of a good hand from time to time. You will make the wrong calls from time to time. Just go with the flow. Leave the analysing part for later. Don’t sit and mope about this – focus clearly on the next hand.
Be sure that you understand the payouts for the tournament. You might be one of the prize winners if they pay the top 40. You don’t want to play aggressively and take risks when you are player no 42. Closer to this “winning circle” a lot of players will start playing a bit more tight. Keep this in mind, adapt your strategy accordingly. This is the time when you can bully the Players that are borderline by raising them and letting them think you have a very strong hand. However, do not enter into pots where Players with lots of chips are competing. They are looking at improving their standing through attacking those with the shorter stacks who are just trying to survive. On the other hand, if you are shorter stacked, you would want to tighten up your play and hope that there are other players more unlucky who will be kicked out before you.
You can play perfect poker, but sometimes things just don’t go your way. Just understand where you are and how you are doing at all times. Enjoy poker!
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