No Limit Holdem Tournament Play
No limit holdem tournaments have become very popular. Many poker players are starting to give the tournament format a try. Let’s look at some ideas to help with tournament play.
First off, you need to watch how the other players at your table play. You have to adapt to how the game is going. As the tournament evolves, you need to use different tactics.
In the early stage of a tournament, everyone is somewhat deep stacked. This is when you can play “poker”. Later, when the blinds get huge in relation to players stack sizes, it becomes more of an all in pre flop type game.
When players have a lot of chips compared to the blinds, you can play weaker hands, looking for well disguised monsters. On the other hand, big poker pairs need to be handled with care. If you don’t hit the flop you might be behind. These hands can be hard to fold, and become costly.
When this situation is reversed, and the blinds are large compared with the stack sizes, this condition is reversed. Top pairs become king. The smaller pairs and suited connectors are hard to play against a player who is raising you.
This is what most players new to no limit holdem tournament do wrong. They don’t adjust their play to the stack sizes in relation to the blinds, especially their own stack. They play the cards only.
With the blinds big, it becomes essential to steal them as much as possible. When you look to steal, you need to sense what your opponents will be thinking. The size of their stacks controls a great deal of how the will play. Here’s a case in point.
Here’s the scenario. You have 1700 chips on the button. The action has folded to you. Blinds are 150/300 with a 25 ante. Both the small blind and big blind have 8200 chips. After one more player goes out, everyone’s in the money.
In this situation the two players in the blinds can risk calling you with a lot of hands. So, you would want to have a strong hand to play. The strength of these two players stacks forces you to wait for a good hand.
If the small blind has 10,000 chips, and the big blind 13,000, things are very different. These two will fold unless they have big hands, so you can go all in with a much weaker hand and be confident to steal the blinds most of the time.
Good tournament players are always considering these factors when deciding how to play. Their hole cards are just a small part of the equation. If you want to join the ranks of the good players, get a clear understanding of these things and you’re on your way.
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