Tournament Strategy: Part 1

I find the early stages of a poker tournament extremely boring. The pots are relatively small, people are making stupid calls, and a few numb nuts are doubling up through a some morons - but their chances of winning are as slim as the next guy’s.

The key to doing well in the early stages of tournaments is simple: play intelligently. Notice I didn’t define a playing style - I didn’t say play tight, or loose, or aggressive, or passive. Why? Because I think you need to play a mix of these styles early in the game. Even loose-passive is a good way to play a few hands early - it will confuse opponents later on when you hit a big hand and play it completely differently - but remember that no matter how you play it must be intelligent.

Early in tournaments I generally lose about 10-20% of my stack, sometimes as much as 50%, without letting it phase me. The thing you have to remember is that no one wins a tournament in the early levels, no one cares how many chips you had at the end of level 5 if you bust out in level 6. Focus on going the distance and try not to worry about what’s happening around you at the early levels.

I generally play a mix of tight aggressive and loose aggressive early in the tournament. I try to pick up small pots and build my stack a few chips at a time while playing suited connectors and other big drawing hands in 4 or 5 way pots. I’ll even call significant raises with hands like 64. Why? Because I feel like in a 4 or 5 way pot I have great implied odds. If I hit a big hand against an AK or AQ, I might be able to take a significant number of chips from my opponents. And because I pick up small pots when I can, I have enough chips to call with a questionable hand early on.

If you’re good at picking up on bluffs or weakness, you can really exploit your tight aggressive opponents early and pick up a lot of small pots from them. Pay close attention to the table and learn who will lay down hands and who won’t. Try to imagine what people were thinking on any given hand. Focus on keeping your chip stack growing and don’t worry about what your opponents stacks look like.

If you can survive to the middle and late stages of a tournament by playing intelligent poker, you should be in a good spot to start adding significantly to your chip stack and set yourself up to win.

I will cover my strategies for the later stages of tournaments in my next article, Tournament Strategy: Part 2.

Related Posts

• Implied odds
• Getting deep into a tournament
• No Limit Cash Games
• Deep stack tournaments on Stars
• Poker tournament success

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