Poker Tournament Tips

The recent explosion in tournament poker has taken the world by storm. Poker itself has been played for more than 100 years, but tournament poker first began to emerge as an organized event around 1970 when the WSOP (World Series of Poker) began. Multi-million dollar poker tournaments on TV have attracted thousands of players to the online poker rooms over the last few years. This has made the online poker tournaments grow in size and popularity and the most popular online tournaments now have prize pools of more than one million dollars.

There is a big difference between being a successful cash game player and a successful tournament player. In tournaments, you need to win all the chips in play. You cannot sit around and wait for the pocket rockets to win a tournament, you need to get in there and gamble or the blinds will eventually eat you up. A great tournament player knows when to play tight and when to make moves. We have played online poker tournaments for years and have constructed a list of 10 poker tournament tips. These tips are important to master if you want to be a successful poker tournament player.
The 10 Most important poker tournament skills

1. The most important element in winning a multi-table poker tournament is luck. If you join a poker tournament with 200 people you need to win more than your fair share of coin flips to win the entire tournament. Skill and experience can get you far, but luck is essential to win a tournament. A tournament player running bad can play an enormous amount of tournaments without cashing in. The variance in MTT’s is crazy and only a very few players make their living playing tournament poker.

2. If you are already a successful ring game player you will need to adjust your strategy. In ring games you need to accumulate the maximum amount of chips. In tournament poker you need to collect all the chips under a certain timeframe and be constantly increasing blinds. That means you must win chips a lot faster than in ring games and therefore play more hands.

3. Chips all have relative value. In a standard poker game each dollar is always worth the same, while in tournament poker the chips have different relative value. If you start out with $1000 worth of chips these chips are worth a lot more than the next $1000 chips you are able to win. Since you are unable to buy your way back into the tournament, the last chips you have are always the most valuable.

4. Remember the Gap concept! David Sklansky introduced the Gap Concept which in tournament poker is priceless. The Gap Concept means, that you will need a better hand to play against someone who has opened the betting, than what you need to open with yourself. This basically means that you need a strong hand to call a bet, but only a semi-strong hand to make a bet. This is important to remember when stealing blinds and making moves.

5. Follow the blinds. Play tight in the beginning of a tournament. How tight you should play depends on the structure of the tournament you are playing. When the blinds are low you can sit tight and wait for other players to make mistakes, but when the blinds begin to rise it is time to get in there and gamble.

6. Position is everything in no-limit Texas Holdem. You must play tight from early position with a lot of people to act behind you. Play aggressively from late position and try to steal blinds with semi-strong hands.

7. Stay focused on the table you are sitting at. Don’t worry how many players are left at the other tables and how they have distributed the chips amongst them. Focus on your table and try to become the chip leader. You need to win all the chips anyway, so might as well start at your own table and worry about the rest of the opponents later.

8. Try to observe and read your opponents to get an idea of how they are playing and use this information when making decisions. A correct read on your opponents is a very powerful tool.

9. Survival is the key. Remember, most often, you will only have one shot. There is no reload button and if you move all-in, you will be eliminated from the tournament. One mistake can cost you the tournament.

10. Change gear. If you want to be a successful tournament player you need to know when to play aggressively and when to play tight. A great tournament player uses position, reads on players, tournament structure, blind level, and many other factors to determine his actions. Use this information to determine when to play aggressively and when to play tight - if you want to win multi-player tournaments you will need to do both. Tight players do not win poker tournaments, the key to winning is a mix between tight play and loose aggressive play.

It doesn’t matter if you are playing in an online qualifier, satellite event, online tournament or live tournament. The tournament structure might differ but the goal is the same and every one of the above tips applies - even though the player’s skills might differ greatly.