GUIDE TO TOURNAMENT POKER

In case we don’t all know what a tournament is, it is a poker match where you are eliminated when you lose all of your custom poker chip stack. So it is just like a cash game except you can’t re-buy another custom poker chip stack? Sadly no, the blinds and antes increase periodically throughout the poker game. This forces poker players to gamble their custom poker chip stack, rather than sitting back and waiting for pocket aces!

The poker tournament doesn’t stop until just one poker player has a custom poker chip stack comprising all the poker chips used in the tournament (i.e. every other poker players’ poker chips make up his custom poker chip stack). The prize money is usually shared out between the top 10 places. If there were 100 players and the buy-in amount was $10, the total prize money is $1000. First place usually takes 35%, second place usually gets 20%, third gets 10% and the remaining seven players get 5% each (so $350, $200, $100 and $50 respectively).

Playing in a poker tournament is very different to playing in a normal cash-game. You really have to adapt your poker gambling and gaming strategy to accommodate for this new type of play. Hopefully with our advice and top tips you will be playing at the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour in the months to come (probably not with your custom poker chip stack though!).

Our first vital piece of advice is to avoid drawing hands. In normal cash-games you can go all-in on a flush or straight draw if you have good positioning. You know that in the long-run this is the right play to make (if you initially raise and have good positioning). If it doesn’t pay off in the short term, you can re-buy and forget about it! In a tournament, you stand to lose your entire custom poker chip stack on a draw. Why would you risk being knocked out of the tournament when you could do so much damage with that huge custom poker chip stack later on in the poker game? Essentially, it is very black and white in a tournament; you must either have the nuts or you must bluff and be confident you can win with the bluff. I have lost a drawing poker hand six times in a row once but re-bought as I knew I was playing well. This would equate to six tournament defeats. Surely that is not a price worth paying?