First, let me ask you, do you want to win the tournament? Of course you do, and many players often say that winning a tournament is by far more important than winning individual hands. I certainly agree with this, but in addition to hands, you also need to accumulate enough chips to be able to survive the death of your tournament opponent.
In a previous article, we covered the initial few steps you should take in an introductory poker tournament, and I suggested staying out of the hands for about 20-30 minutes in an early stage to allow your opponents to commit themselves to playing you. Well, if you are going to win this tournament, then you want to be able to weather the storm a little bit longer so it doesn’t cost you a lot of chips.
In that sense it makes good sense to be more conservative in the first round and then loosen up later on as you near the money and in the final stages. You want to be a little keen on stealing the blinds at the start and hope to get a little help later on from the better players at the table.
Consequently, when you are in a later stage you can adopt a more aggressive approach as you will know your overall opponents better, and you will be able to call when you can steal the blinds.
Last point: with the blinds starting low – don’t be afraid to call an opponents raise when you feel you have the better hand and you are the only caller. I have been at many tables where the player to my left would always raise in position and then fold to my raises on the button. Certainly, he was playing with a strong hand, but I could always get him to lay this hand down with alarming ease. Just don’t get too fat and forget about him!
The more tournament examples you can put this to, the more it should become clear how a few simple upgrades to your pre-flop strategy can have a very big effect on your overall results. Just remember that you need togreedyansky to be a profitable player, and sometimes it will not work out for you.
Small Ball Strategy Final Step
Once you have established yourself as a player who can handle yourself with some aggression and play some decent hands, then you can start to loosen up. More aggressive than isolating.
You will lose some battles, sure, but if you keeperg yourself in the game, you will probably win overall. If you lose some chips, just start over again with the same mean/tight strategy. And again, if you lose a tournament or two, be sure to learn from your mistakes. Why did you call the raise with the worst hand, Steve? Why didn’t you re-raise him with two high cards?
It’s a game of numbers and if you calculate, you will usually come out ahead. But I have also seen the other side of the example, where a player would call Steve with 6s-6d, knowing that the Steve is likely to bet and Steve is likely to re-raise, and they’d still lose.
With a little patience you can work your way to the top 20% of players in a Bolagila tournament. Top 5% is all you need to make a profit. And you are now way ahead of most other players. You have a few things to learn, such as icons, and when to steal the blinds from the button, and when not to fight the continuation bet and be in posh-leck. But I will cover the big picture in this article and help you improve your poker game forever.