By Brandon Adams
When I first started playing tournament poker, I tended to bust near the bubble.

I would play very tight in the early stages, and then as the blinds and antes rose, I’d wait for good hands and push in. This frequently resulted in me busting with good but not great hands, such as A-Jo or T-T.

Busting with a hand like a pair of tens near the bubble is, in some ways, a respectable thing to do. When your friends ask you how you busted, you can say, “I was short-stacked and I reraised all in for twelve big blinds with a pair of tens,” and they will say, “Oh, well. You had to push there.” They’d be right, and in my early days I’d take some consolation in their assurances that my bustout was unavoidable. But after a while, I started to ask myself, “Why’d I only have twelve big blinds at that point?”

Watching tournament poker live and on TV, I’d seen players make moves that seemed incomprehensible to me. I’d watch pros reraise all in pre-flop with hands like 7.8. or 6.8., and I’d think to myself, “How could they possibly risk busting out on that hand?”

That question, together with the question of why I never had chips near the end of a tournament, led me to discover a critical flaw in my thinking. I realized that most of my decisions about hand values had been influenced by charts in beginner poker books showing the probability of a particular hand, say T-T, holding up against two random cards. I had neglected to fully consider…. read rest of article at Bluff Magazine

by Todd Arnold

Be especially mindful of the risk-versus-reward concept

The title of this column sounds a bit exacting because, as you know by now, you must play your situations as they arise and not follow any set rule. There is no set “game plan” that you should ever have going into a tournament, other than observing and reacting to your opponents with your best option. There are, however, some thought processes that you can have to guide you in your decision-making. During the early stages of a tournament, you should be especially mindful of the risk-versus-reward concept. Whether you are playing a deep-stack tournament with $10,000 in starting chips and blinds of $25-$50 or a short-stack tournament with only $1,500 in starting chips and blinds of $10-$20, there are “value” questions that you must ask yourself. There is a large gap in flexibility between the two types of tournaments.

Let’s first look at a live deep-stack tournament with $10,000 in starting chips. The blinds are $25-$50 and it is a $10,000 buy-in event. You watch the players at your table for a round or two and notice that they are playing fairly tight (as is often the case). Raises are rarely contested; people are talking and seemingly having a good time, and are very happy to be there. You pick up 9-9 in the cutoff position. A guy in middle position raises to $150 and you make it…. read rest of article at Card Player Magazine

By Sasha @ SmokePoker
I suppose there is a library of advice that can be offered in regards to every poker play; however, the stealing blinds is a necessity in tournament play if you hope to build your stack towards the leader, and maintain a workable stack as the blinds increase and players decrease. The pre-flop re-steal is simply a re-raise based on an initial raise that someone has bet in an effort to steal the blinds. So if you were thinking it had something to do with robbing a bank with gymnastic ability the day after someone else robbed it, you’ve come to the wrong place.Often times in a game of No-Limit Texas Holdem, players will lose patience when they feel the looming blanket of desperation begin to wrap around their tournament run, or perhaps their cash game budget. They realize that they will need to make an effort at stealing blinds or they won’t have any blinds to offer. At this point, it’s not uncommon to see a player move all-in pre-flop, but in the case that they make an effort to simply raise and steal the blind, they are a prime target for a…. read rest of article at SmokePoker

By Mike Caro
People read books. People read books on poker. People read books on poker and they study and study. People read books on poker and they study and study and then they sit down for their first cardroom experience. Then what?I’ll tell you then what. Then they most likely have chosen to seat themselves in a $1-$2, $2-$4, or $3-$6 limit seven-card stud or hold’em game and nothing seems the way it was promised. What good does it do to know about check-raising, about reraising aggressively to get extra value, or about tricking your foes?

What they don’t know might hurt them. Those foes don’t even know that they’re in danger of being check-raised or what it means when that happens. They don’t understand why a medium-strong hand is OK to play against a single raise, but often not OK to play against a reraise. And they aren’t likely to be tricked, because they don’t have a firm understanding about what a nontrick play should look like.

Instead of going into casino poker games unarmed, as was necessary years ago when no credible books laid out winning strategies for cardroom poker, lots of new players today do something very smart. They decide…. read rest of article at Poker Pages

By Daniel Negreanu
If someone describes your playing style as weak, let’s just say you’re in lots of trouble. In fact, its the weak players that are the ones you should focus on when you are at the poker table. Rather than duke it out with the strong, fierce, aggressive players you’ll risk less, and win more in the long run against the weak, timid, passive players.

In order to pound on the weak players properly, the first thing you’ll need to do is identify them. There are generally a few clues that you can look for that while not always totally accurate, could be clues nonetheless:

1) How they dress. If someone dresses extremely conservatively they will generally play poker that way! If they dress loudly they’ll more than likely play more aggressive or flamboyantly.

2) How they talk. This is in line with the previous clue. If they are quiet or timid in the way they talk, chances are that’s how they’ll play poker.

Again, conversely, if you a dealing with an aggressive talker they are more than likely aggressive players.

3) Do they raise before the flop or just call? If they like to limp in on a regular basis, you might be dealing with a weak player.

4) Do they like to bet, or check and call? Aggressive players are bettors while weak players tend to check, or just call others bets.

So once you’ve identified the weak player, it’s time to strategize against them….   read rest of article at Poker Pages