ThePokerTest.com

Making Money Playing Tournaments

Wouldn't we all like to make money playing poker tournaments? Absolutely! Do we all make money playing poker tournaments? Absolutely not! The fact of the matter is that some poker players are excellent tournament players and poor cash game players. Conversely, there are players that are terrible tournament players but excel in cash games. Tournament poker is about more than just reading your opponents or selecting hands. It is about knowing when to push your aggression and feeling out inflection points within the tournaments. This allows you to take risk at the correct times and that is how you position yourself to accumulate chips continually throughout the tournament.

Tournament Stages

If you look at how most of the successful tournament poker players approach the game you will notice that they have one thing in common. They all adjust their strategy based on the stage of the tournament. They recognize that the beginning stages of the tournament do not play the same as the middle and late stages of the poker tournament. In the early stages you are trying to double up and begin playing more speculative hands. That means you are not chasing flush draws for your entire stack or going all in post flop after an open ended straight draw. What it does mean is that you are getting maximum value for the hands you are playing and playing them well. The middle stages of the tournament you have a nice stack and are trying to grow that stack incrementally and even exponentially when the opportunity exists. Lastly, the late stages of the poker tournament you are already in or close to the money. This is where the pros differentiate themselves from the amateurs. The fact of the matter is that the pros play to win the tournament. They also realize that in the late stages of the tournament is when the maximum risk pays off the most.

None of us should be surprised to see to large stacks going at each other with one on a flush draw at this stage. Why? Because the payoff makes sense to take the risk at this point due to the large payout for places 1 through 3. An amateur sees it as they are in the money and they hope to get to first or third after making the final table. The lesson to be learned is that you need to think about winning in the late stages and not survival.

The Tournament Mindset

As one might reasonably believe the tournament poker mindset is different than cash games. In a cash game you can easily re-buy. Tournaments do not work this way. In a tournament once you bust out you are done unless you are playing in a re-buy tournament. Armed with this knowledge you need to be more fundamentally sound. This means playing your premium hands strong to protect them and not making careless calls with marginal hands for large chunks of your stack. This may sound real easy but you would be surprised at how impatient players can be suggesting that tournament play lacks action and is boring. There are other variables, aside from the card play, you need to be tuned into. You need to be watching each player and their tendencies. How do they bet their hands? What position do they play certain hands from? Are they weak passive, aggressive or solid?

You need to be figuring a way to get a read on your opponents so that you can exploit that read when the time comes. In other words there is no time to be looking out the window even when you are not directly involved in the hand. Pay attention to what is going on at the table so you can use it to your advantage.

If you can keep these few things in mind you are going to be successful in tournaments over the long run. If you are really good you will win your share too.