In this article, I will present general strategies you can use in big tournaments, meaning hundreds and sometimes thousands of players, such as freeroll tournaments for example.. These strategies apply to “normal pace” tournaments. By that, I mean a typical structure found in tournaments where the blinds start low, and the blind increments from level to level are not excessively steep. Also, the total time between level increases is average (10-12 minutes or so is common). These strategies do not apply to “turbo” tournaments where the blinds increase very quickly and by a lot.

Starting Strategy

Because this is a slower pace tournament, I will advise you to take your time when you first start out. Semi-conservative play is good at first. You’ll notice that what tends to happen in the first 10 hands of any big freeroll tournament is that a lot of people go all in. Some go all in because they have an ace in their hands and hope to get lucky. Others my have a pair and try to win big. Some people just go all in no matter what they have and hope to win the “first hand lottery”. You don’t want to be involved at this stage because too many people call. Remember that in general, you only want to be…. read rest of article at MyPokerCorner.com

By Andy Bloch
In major tournaments, people are surprised by the amount of ‘big name’ professionals busting out early, but it’s really not as strange as you might think. Good tournament players don’t simply try to make it through the first day, their overall aim is to get to the money and the final table with a lot of chips. So it’s an all or nothing situation. They’re not going to avoid risk in an attempt to simply make it through the first day. That’s what the amateurs do.

Poker is always a minefield, whether because of unpredictable players or unpredictable cards. The skills are the same, whether you’re playing in a big tournament or a small tournament: you’re trying to figure out who you can bluff and who you can value bet against. You can pick up a lot of information before a hand of poker has even been played – such as…. read rest of article at Bluff Magazine

By Michael Mizrachi
Recently I changed my style. In the early stages of a tournament, I’ll still be super-aggressive – I’m in sixth gear, raising a lot of pots – but as soon as I’ve built a huge stack, I play a little more conservatively and lay down some hands. I put my car in neutral and slow down a bit before the final table.

I realized that I don’t have to go chasing those big pots in the later stages of a tournament. In the past, I’d be hungry to play the big pots, and found that I’d frequently end up narrowly missing those final tables when I really should have been there. So I sat down, took a long, hard look at my game, and changed my style. That’s what every poker player needs to do once in while, and now hopefully you’re going to see me making a lot more final tables in the future. I might even win Bluff’s player of the year!

So, in the later stages of a tournament, try to…. read rest of article at Bluff Magazine

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