advanced poker play

Introduction.

Playing tournament poker is different to playing a regular game with friends or at a casino, be it online or ‘bricks and mortar’. The following are some points you need to consider quite carefully when the table you’re sitting on is about to, or gets, broken up and, as is fairly common in tournaments, the stakes are raised either on the hour or at certain pre-determined points.

Tournament table break-up basics

Depending on the format of the tournament you’re playing poker in, the table you’re sat at could get broken up when the number of players at it is down to four, or after a pre-determined length of time or, although this would be unusual, when there are just two players left at a table or even just the table winner is still in the tournament.

The tournament organizer will want to keep the tension in the poker games up and things moving along, so you need to leave at home any superstitions you have about which seat at a table you ‘have’ to sit in or whereabouts in the room you like the table to be. If there doesn’t seem to be any information about table break-ups for the tournament readily available, ask one of the organizers what’s going to happen, as you don’t want any surprises to throw you off your game once you’ve started.

Table break-ups and playing strategies.

Now that's not really a good poker bluff face - is it?

 The first strategy tip for poker table break-ups in tournaments is regarding advertising your plays to opponents. The whole point of advertising plays is basically to then be able to later bluff your opponent into thinking they know what you’re going to play. Having lulled them into this false sense of security, on a poker hand of your choosing, you then play differently to what they anticipated. Advertising plays in a tournament poker game is waste of time, as you more than likely won’t have the time to make it pay for you. The table could be broken up after just a few hands or even minutes, so trying to set up a bluff for a future hand probably won’t work as the person you’re targeting with your bluff could be gone quite quickly, either out of the tournament or on to another table. Another call you need to make is if you’re on a table that has some pretty shrewd players on it and you’re in trouble, being nearly broke, of going out at the next table break up. You now need to make the decision should you leave the small edges and take advantage of larger ones? Basically if the table is very soon to be broken up you’re probably better off staying clear of the close gambles, especially for no-limit poker games. Your decision here is also complicated by the way the stakes are rising, so take a look at your stack and decide whether or not to just gamble with your chips. Sometimes you just need to push that ‘feeling lucky now‘ button.

More than one day poker tournaments.

 Table break-ups can also be affected by the length of a tournament. In a two day poker tournament you might not need to worry at all about table break-ups and just concentrate on playing your game and getting through to day 2. This strategy is also linked to how the stakes rise. Blinds on the first day can rise very slowly, resulting in only the very poorest players not being around for day 2. Come day 2 everyone has to re-draw for a seat and your chances of being on a table with some easy pickings increases. So, even if you’ve not had the best of days on day 1, raising your own money for the day 2 buy-in, could be a pretty clever move. Finally on this point about tournaments lasting more than one day. If the rules are that there’ll be no table break-ups on the first day, then you can re-introduce your bluffs for that day. Depending on who’s on your table big and aggressive plays usually work best in tournaments, simply because the calls will be against bigger stakes, so other folk might not be to keen to jump in with you. That strategy works especially well in no-limit games. However, the same can apply to timid bluffs, because the stakes are higher – you might just be able to steal a bigger pot. The one golden rule in a tournament is not to try playing both types of bluff on the one day – you’ll get noticed and blocked out of the game.

Stake rise coming – but you’ve got a short stack.

With a stake rise imminent and only a short stack in front of you the temptation to take chances with your bets will be high, to try and avoid not having enough chips for the next hands . Resist that temptation! Consider the situation where one or two others have shorter stacks than you. You’re all in a similar position, but it’s not the time for anything desperate and rash. Now is the time to really keep that cool poker head. Don’t only look to play with them for the less risky lower limit margins, as you will actually have a better chance of making better money on the higher stakes compared to them. In effect leave them to be the bottom feeders, whilst you move your way back up toward being one of the sharks. You have to keep in mind here you need to not just make it through the table break-up and into the next game, but you need to accumulate the chips to be able to compete at that level for more than one or two hands.

Short stacks and using your all-in strategy knowledge.

 

A short stack can make even the most skilful of players lose all sense of reason and common sense, making them play hands and bets they wouldn’t normally consider. At times like those you need to bring to the forefront of your brain all of your knowledge about going all-in. So a useful tip here is to remember that with a short stack slightly bigger than is needed to go in early – wait for the next raise in stakes and then go for the all-in stack.