Poker Tournament Strategy

If you’re interested in poker, you have probably seen a poker tournament on television. They look fun and they are. They can also be quite profitable. To be sure, you need quite a bit of luck to win a poker tournament, but you will also have to implement proper poker tournament strategy.

There are two schools of thought on poker tournament strategy. One school says that since you will have to face many situations over the course of the tournament where you will have a 50-50 chance of winning, you should make an effort to double and redouble your chips early, playing super aggressively from the beginning, so that when you face one of these situations, you can lose and still be in the tournament.

That type of poker tournament strategy is relatively new. The traditional strategy school that many professionals adhere to advocates tight, careful play in the early rounds in a tournament. Since each individual chip loses value as the tournament progresses due to the advancing blinds, traditional strategy suggests that you should just try to gain enough chips to keep you healthy in the tournament in relation to the next blind level. That is to say, you would ideally like to have enough chips to survive at least 20 rounds of blinds. Once the blinds are so high that this is not possible, it is time to start thinking about becoming more aggressive.

Another aspect of poker tournament strategy is related to the period where the remaining players are getting close to the money, also called "the bubble." Many players want to get something for their efforts and blanch at the thought of playing for hours only to finish 46th when 45 people are paid. If you have a decent amount of chips as you approach the bubble, you should turn up the heat, playing very aggressively and threatening the medium stacks with the possibility of coming away with nothing (it’s not as good an idea to attack the shortest stacks; their backs are against the wall and they often have to call you).

You’ll still need a nice run of luck, but if you keep these poker tournament strategy ideas in mind, you may be headed to the final table that much faster. Also, the more tournament experience you gain, the better your understanding of proper strategy will become.