Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

I’m not much of an expert in this department, as my tighter style of play isn’t really conducive to acquiring a large stack. However, I was able to call on my friends at Poker Listings for some help on the topic, and they came up with some great material. Enjoy!*****

In a poker tournament, every player wants to be the chip leader, or at least have a really big stack. However, when you reach that position you will find that it’s not all that easy to handle. If you don’t play your big stack correctly you will see it slowly (or, even worse, quickly) disappear, and when you’re knocked out of the tournament you will ask yourself: “What happened? What did I do wrong?” This is some advice on how to avoid that painful experience.

Early stage of the tournament

Your aim in the beginning of a poker tournament should be to build up your chip stack. Don’t focus on knocking opponents out of the tournament (the money is too far away at this stage). If you get lucky and find yourself with a large stack early on you should keep playing your usual style. There is no need to take big risks. Try to hold on to your strong position without becoming passive or reckless.

Middle stage of the tournament

If you have a big stack in the middle stage of a poker tournament you should play aggressively and use this advantage to pick on opponents with smaller chip stacks. Make raises that virtually put them all-in. If you get an opportunity to eliminate another player you should try to take it if you have a reasonably good chance of winning the hand. However, you shouldn’t get careless - things can turn around really fast in a poker tournament. It’s a good idea to stay away from confrontations with other large stacks unless you have really strong cards.

Late stage of the tournament

If you have a large chip stack late in a tournament, you should generally play very aggressively. Make big raises even though your cards are not very strong. However, you will need really good cards to call if one of your opponents makes a raise. Normally you should only play hands against players with smaller stacks than yours, since they will be afraid of getting knocked out. This tactic will give you a lot of pots and further strengthen your position in the tournament. Just like in the middles stages, rivals with big stacks should be avoided unless you have a very good hand.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 26th, 2006 at 2:40 am and is filed under Beginner Holdem Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.