Posts tagged Tournaments
Poker Bankroll Building Strategy – Cash Games or Tournaments?
Oct 4th
Are you in the bankroll building stage of your online poker career? If you don’t even know the answer to that, then you need a lot of luck if you are going to avoid a reload. However, if you do know that you are in a building and learning stage where you want your $50 or $100 to last as long as it can while you are learning the game then you may have a critical decision to make. That is, should you be playing in the NL cash games or sit and go and multi-table tournaments?
If you follow Chris Ferguson’s exploits at Full Tilt Poker, while building his bankroll he mainly sticks to the tournament circuit keeping his buys in check, and playing straight-up solid poker. (Yes, the same Chris Ferguson who won the 2000 WSOP!) In fact, on his quest to go from $0 to $10,000 at Full Tilt in a bankroll management challenge, he made his first big leap in a $1 Multi-table tournament where he finished 2nd of 683 entries and earned a whopping $104.
Now this is a guy you can take advice from.
However, we should look at those action-packed No-Limit cash games as well, because a bankroll can grow rather quickly with just a few good hands, not the months it took Chris Ferguson to get out of the penny ranks. Even with limits at .25 and .50 you should probably not sit down at these tables with less than $20, so if you’re starting bankroll is only $50 or $100, well you have made your first bankroll mistake already.
The lure of these tables are really based on quick, almost exponential growth of your bankroll where a turn of a card can send your draw into poker lore, while 3 other players in the pot watch in amazement as you suck out on each of them.
That kind of hand happens more than you think, but with you on the losing end facing a reload and/or re-buy to exact your full revenge and let your opponents know how resilient you are. Hey listen, you may actually get out of those tables with a profit, even with your limited experience, but it would have surely been based on luck and happenstance that you did. If you do profit, that is actually the beginning of a problem, not a successful bankroll, because you did it in a way that couldn’t have possibly built your skills at the game or money management.
That is what building a bankroll is all about: Getting in your playing time, learning from other players, adopting and perfecting strategies, and seeing real hand to hand combat. The best way to do that is in tournament where you can limit your losses to your entry fee and stretch out your playing dollar to the maximum benefit for learning. Take it from Chris Ferguson. If you do that, and still have to reload, there isn’t anything wrong. That’s when you know you can try again and again by doing it right and skill building along the way.
Marty Smith has a poker tournament strategy video series that is free just for signing up. He also has video reviews of all the online poker calculators so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you.
Online Casino Tournaments – Part Two
May 8th
Playing at the casino tournaments the strategy may be different from the common gambling. When gambling, for the most players the main thing is not to lose. The gambler plays discreetly, tries his best efforts to prolong the pleasure and not to lose. The main thing about the tournaments is to hit the prize pool. It makes no sense to hang around the initial sum, as you would never come into the prize winners. It’s all the same whether you’ll lose your money or keep it – anyway you will pay for entry. So, the winning formula of tournament games is “Sink or swim”. You will have to stake high and take risks. There are two main approaches in tournament games, one of them is called conservative and the other one is referred to as aggressive.
The conservative approach suggests “slow” start of the tournament. The stakes are not very high; the risks are not that big, the main purpose is to stay in the game as long as possible and see how other players progress. As the tournament situation is becoming more or less clear, the player increases his stakes and tries to catch up with the leaders. In the aggressive approach the player starts to stake maximum from the very beginning. If the limit of the table permits, some players stake all the money. The main aim here is quickly to leave behind all the competitors and being a leader to play more calmly and watch the competitors.
Besides the aggressive approach would help you to save the time if the game is not in your favour. Select the approach you like, but one general recommendation is that it is worth to play “against the crowd”. So if the majority plays conservative tactics, you should follow the aggressive one and vice versa.
If in the tournament there are casino games with basic strategy such as blackjack or other games, then all you need is to follow the strategy. The only exception is few last hands (when the time is running out). If you need quickly to catch up with an opponent and you are running short of time, you may diverge the blackjack basic strategy and split tens or double. You may use various stake strategies even martingale. At the end of the day it is a tournament and you are not so afraid to lose your money but to increase the chances to win. In such a case, the dispersion is not your enemy, but friend. You have to take risks to succeed!
And one more hint – please look through the results of the previous tournaments before your start playing, so that you can understand what you should aim at. Online casinos tournaments would allow you to turn a negative to positive mathematical expectation! There are two ways to success: firstly, tournaments with guaranteed prize fund can offer bigger prize than the sum of the collected fees, secondly player’s skill level. This fact at once makes the game win-win in any way. If you follow the blackjack basic strategy and you are ready to take risks, then you would get advantage over the opponents. In accordance with experience not all the players are familiar with the basic strategy and principles of the online casinos tournaments. Because in the tournament you are not playing against the casino dealer but against the other players your chances are higher than average, and in any way you’ll be in the profit. On the whole, if you want to play a risky game, play in the tournaments – you would enjoy the game and you would have chances to catch a whale.
Arthur Prudent is the developer of Casino bonus codes, web site covering gambling news, features reviews on Casinos, Poker rooms, bingos, Sports Betting bonuses promotions and more.
Strategies For Entering Large Scale Poker Tournaments
Apr 17th
Entering large poker tournaments will require a much different approach than that employed in traditional table games or small tournament play. A good deal of early tournament play is about surviving those early stages and building your bankroll into the later stages so you can be in a position to effectively compete against the large players. The objective of entering a large tournament is to either cash in – survive until the cash round, or to make it to a cutoff for gaining entry into an even larger tournament such as a satellite. This guide will guide you through the various stages of the game in order to help you to navigate the tables at large scale tournaments.
Determine the strategies of your opponents by carefully observing how they utilize their stacks. Some players take an aggressive go big or go home approach. At the same some other competitors sit back, taking a more passive stance, waiting for the big hand. Rotation of players at the table is the order of the day for tournament play, so it is important to pay careful attention to new player behavior so you can properly adjust your approach for each phase of the game.
Early Tournament
Most modern tournaments take a freeze out format, which means there are no re-buys so a losing player is eliminated from the tournament. As a result, most players begin the game waiting for a big hand to maximize their chances of doubling up. This is a good strategy to start with but you can also benefit by taking advantage of the timidity of other players to become selectively aggressive.
For example, you enter a hand with J-10 suited. The flop comes K-Q-3 where you hit only three of your suit with an open ended straight draw. While you may feel your opponent is holding a king, re-raising aggressively may signal to that opponent you have a set (three of a kind) or two pair. By moving all in, you force your opponent to risk their entire stack on the gamble, and in many cases they will fold as a result. At this stage the blinds and antes are relatively low so you can carefully pick the spots to be aggressive, exploiting your chances of making the right move.
Middle Game Play
As tournaments become more competitive in the latter rounds, it’s important to update your personal strategy accordingly. Since the blinds and antes increase in the game, time becomes an even more important factor, requiring you to play more hands. While you may have to be more open when it comes to playing hands pre-flop you should remain keen on tight aggressive play post-flop based upon the cards as well as your read on fellow players.
Try to avoid going up against players with a large stack who are able to put you all in based on a bluff. This situation forces you into making difficult decisions. Wait instead for an opportunity to double up against a weaker player, or go for several smaller pots to build up your stack. Following careful strategies will assist you as you navigate into the later stages of the tournament in a strong position.
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Texas Holdem Tournament Strategy – Sit and Go Poker Tournaments
Apr 2nd
Welcome to the fourth in my Texas Holdem Strategy Series, focusing on no limit Texas Holdem poker tournament play and associated strategies. In this article, we’ll examine the “Sit and Go” tournament – the most popular online poker tournament format today.
When I first started playing in Sit and Go tournaments, I was beginning to think they called it “sit and go” because you sat down, played a little, then it was time to go do something else since you’d just been whacked and knocked out of the tournament! These tournaments can be really tough, since they’re effectively like being at the “final table” of a regular tournament.
The recent popularity of playing online Sit & Go tournaments sometimes amazes me. On any given evening, you can try to jump into a Sit and Go (SNG) table on Party Poker, for example, and easily find yourself competing just to get into a seat before that table fills up, forcing you to go find another table (especially on lower-entry fee tables). I’ve seen times when it can take up to 10 attempts to get into a Sit and Go tournament table during prime time. That’s because there are literally thousands of players across the world who are hungry to get into these tournaments and hopefully win some money.
All of the major online poker rooms now offer Sit and Go format games now, so you can find a place to play just about everywhere. You can think of these games as being very similar to small “satellite” tournament games that surround the bigger poker tournaments at traditional poker tournament venues. They also somewhat resemble play at a final table in a regular tournament, with one key exception – nobody at this table earned their way to this tournament table – they simply paid their entry-fee to play there. Because of this, the broad range of players and skill levels you’re likely to encounter varies wildly – one of many challenges you’ll face in Sit and Go play.
Generally, there are two types of Sit and Go tournaments offered. Single table and multi-table tournaments. Nowadays, there is also a faster game, sometimes referred to as “Turbo” mode SNG tournaments. In these games, the tempo of the tournament is much faster (blinds go up every 5 minutes instead of 15 minutes), with the blinds increasing much faster and less time allowed to make your decisions. This is a very challenging game format, but it does move along much faster than a traditional Sit and Go tournament.
You can also get into 4-player and heads-up (2 player) games, which just effectively puts you into the poker tournament final table, short-handed mode of operation immediately, so you can play the end-game out from there. I don’t really prefer these games, though, since there are far fewer players and therefore the pool size available to win is much smaller and not as worthwhile.
In general, two-table Sit and Go’s are much more profitable, since they begin with more players (18 to 20), making the prize pool larger and more attractive. Once you know how to play and win in these Sit and Go tournaments and can adjust your play appropriately, the number of tables and players really doesn’t matter as much, since you’ll be able to adapt your play quickly as the situation changes around you.
Some of my favorite places to play Sit & Go tournaments include Party Poker, Poker Stars and PrimaPoker’s Captain Cook’s poker rooms. There are many awesome poker rooms out there, with a wide range of players frequenting each of them. They are all very similar.
There are a number of different entry-fee levels to choose from, typically ranging from $5 up to $5,000. There is very little difference in playing in the lower limit games in the $5 to $30 range. When you get above the $30 threshold, the level of players you’ll encounter improves dramatically. The poker room site typically takes a “rake”, a fee of around 10% for hosting the tournament, and the balance of the funds go into the prize pool. In single-table SNG tournaments, the payout goes to the top 3 finishers. In two-table games, the top 4 places are generally paid.
In higher entry-fee games, you’ll be playing against some very good players. In these high tier games, you’ll encounter some of the best, most dangerous players around. If you’re interested in getting into these high stakes games, one way is to win enough at the lower stake games so that you earn, or leverage, your smaller entry-fees into the bigger games, a traditional way that satellite games work and a good approach to take.
I play in a lot of Sit and Go tournaments and regular tournaments, both online and in casinos and poker rooms. Throughout all of this, I have finally learned how to win consistently at Sit and Go tournaments. There are some key areas that you must focus on and shore up in order to properly “shape” your play and end up in the money.
You’ll need a well-rounded approach, though, to place in the money consistently at Sit and Go tournaments, including:
* Playing Position Correctly – you’ll need to know how to use position in the Sit and Go tournament to your advantage, which hands to play in which positions and how to keep from losing your chips from poor positions. Earlier in the tournament, it’s best to be more conservative with your play by only playing the best hands from the best positions.
* Adjusting to Changing Conditions – the key to winning Sit and Go tournaments is adjusting your play style and approach as the blinds and number of players increases. Done correctly, you’ll end up in the final 3 in the money up to half of the time (no approach you can take will allow you to win all of the time). As the game progresses, you must adjust or the blinds will eat you up.
* Winning Heads-up Play – arguably one of the most misunderstood, yet most fun part of any tournament, is playing heads-up against another good player. Learning to play winning heads-up poker means the difference between being the Winner and 2nd Place – a huge difference in payout in all tournaments goes to the winner, along with the recognition as the champion, so you must learn to play great heads-up poker. In general, you must play much more aggressively heads up than you would otherwise.
* Beating Aggressive Players – see my article on playing vs. aggressive players, which will definitely make a difference for Sit and Go play, as it explains how to take advantage of aggressive and wild players, without losing all of your chips in the process.
* Online Tells – there are many different special tells that you can use when playing online. Do you know them? Do you use them? If not, chances are they’re being used against you! For example, when players use checkboxes online and make a lot of their decisions ahead of time, then suddenly they’re not using the checkbox (because they’re taking longer), that could be a tell that they’re having to think things through more, which could be a tell. If they use checkboxes and act instantly, chances are they don’t have a very good hand, so didn’t even need to think about it (just clicked the checkbox and now waiting on the next card).
* Successful Bluffing and Blind Stealing – one of the most important moves in poker is bluffing the opponents, and in tournament play, you must be capable of successfully bluffing in order to survive the blinds and antes and to win heads-up. You can’t bluff weak players, so don’t even try. You’ll need to learn how determine the style or type of the players, so you’ll recognize who to bluff.
The next time you’re thinking about playing a poker tournament, give the Sit and Go a try. It’s a fast-paced tournament, where you’ll have the opportunity to experience first hand what it’s like to play at that Texas Holdem poker tournament final table. You’ll go through a sequence of fast play and changing conditions, starting from a full table of 10 players, progressing rapidly to only 5 to 6. Then, if you’re a good enough player, you’ll find yourself in the most dangerous position of all – where you’re one of only 4 players remaining, so you’re only one seat out of the money. The key goal is surviving to the heads-up phase, so you get a shot at being the tournament winner, who receives the bulk of the prize pool.
So, you can practice for bigger tournament events by playing in Sit and Go tournaments and that way you’ll be very comfortable when you do make it that final table in a big Texas Holdem poker tournament, and you’ll have a lot of fun and gain some great Texas Holdem tournament poker experience along the way.
Rick Braddy is an avid writer, Texas Holdem player and professional software developer and marketer for over 25 years. His websites and Texas Holdem poker tournament e-course helps people become better Texas Holdem tournament players. If you’re a poker player, be sure to visit his Texas Holdem websites today and learn how you can play better Texas Holdem, too.