In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible. Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. Here are the 4 essential tips for crushing poker tournaments direct from the pros: Steal a lot, use ICM, defend the BB and Mastermind. Get this from a library! Poker tournament tips from the pros: how to win low-limit poker tournaments. Shane Smith - Available to the public for the first time, Poker Tournament Tips from the Pros is the definitive insider's guide for players looking to gain a competitive edge.
Of all the thrills gamblers can experience, winning a poker tournament might just be the most exhilarating.
Just watching this old clip from the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event still gives me goosebumps every time.
Pay attention to the 2:58 mark, right as the pivotal 6 of spades on the river cinches poker's World Championship for a baby-faced Phil Hellmuth.
As soon as the 'Poker Brat' sees that he's dodged the deck — fading 13 outs to dethrone two-time defending champ Johnny Chan — he thrusts his arms skyward in pure exultation.
Granted, winning the biggest poker tournament of them all at 24 years young tends to have that effect, but that first-place feeling is still a thrill no matter what stakes you play.
Unlike other casino staples like blackjack and roulette that offer a singular return — betting, sweating, and seeing the result happens within the span of a minute — winning a poker tournament takes a ton of time and effort.
Whether you're grinding a nightly No Limit Texas Hold'em event at your local casino, a three-day bracelet tournament at the WSOP, or even just a quick 10-handed Sit and Go online, you'll need to decipher hundreds or even thousands of decisions.
Which cards to play before the flop. How much to wager with your opening raise. What to do if an opponent plays back with a three-bet in position. When you should keep chasing that flush or draw, or just fold to live and fight another day.
These are all the decision inflection points a tournament poker player encounters while sorting through just a single hand. Add up a few hours or several days of grueling play against opponents who want nothing more than to bust you and add your chips to their stack, and the poker term 'grinding' becomes entirely appropriate.
That's why navigating the minefield posed by 100+, 1,000+, or even 10,000+ player fields and actually laying claim to every last chip in play is such a surreal feeling. Everybody began the journey with the same buy-in and the same starting chip stack, but somehow, you emerged from the pack to defeat all comers and take home the lion's share of the prize pool.
Oh yeah, I haven't even mentioned the money, either.
When Hellmuth took down Chan to win the 1989 WSOP — then the biggest tournament on the planet in terms of prize money — the eventual 15-time gold bracelet winner earned $755,000 for his efforts.
Some 30 years later, Hellmuth has parlayed 'cashes' in live tournament play into $22,861,742 in career earnings, with his best score a fourth-place run for $2.64 million in a tournament that cost $1 million just to play.
And for all that dough, Hellmuth is 'only' 19th on the Hendon Mob database's all-time tournament earnings list, with leader Justin Bonomo doubling up at $45 million and counting.
Suffice it to say, capturing the crown in a poker tournament — any poker tournament — is an accomplishment coveted by players of every caliber.
Just ask these four professional poker players who tried their best to encapsulate what tournament victory really feels like — even for elite talents who do it all the time.
The Pros Tell You What Winning a Tournament Is Really Like
After bursting onto the poker scene during the 'boom' days of 2003 through 2006, Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow fell on hard times. A drug arrest and subsequent incarceration took him off the tournament circuit for an extended spell, but he returned with a vengeance in 2013 at the 2013 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
That year, after carving through a stacked bracket featuring one-on-one duels, Matusow squared off against none other than his 'frenemy' Hellmuth. With $750,000 on the line, not to mention bragging rights between the pals and occasional nemeses, Matusow wound up in the winner's circle.
You can watch the entire Finals matchup, but here's the undeniable money shot.
With Hellmuth already having raised all-in, Matusow held only 8-6 of diamonds for a flush draw on the turn. Hellmuth had the top pair, but Matusow decided to go for the kill, telling his crazed supporters on the rail, 'I'm going for the win!' as he committed the calling chips with authority.
You'll have to watch to see exactly how the river card comes down, but let's allow 'The Mouth' to do what he does best by telling you how his big win really felt:
'I hadn't won one since 2008. I have only played about 40 since then, and these guys play about 40 a week.
I'm on top of the world right now. There is nothing that feels better than winning a tournament. Nothing.'
In a more recent example, high-stakes cash game pro Nick Schulman — who is no slouch on the tournament felt either — took home the title at the 2019 U.S. Poker Open's $25,000 8-Game Mix Championship.
After defeating 19 of the most proficient poker players in the game today, adding $270,000 to his bankroll in the process, Schulman told PokerNews how sweet tournament victory tastes.
'It feels damn good.
There's nothing like winning a tournament, regardless of the field size. It feels great, and getting a clear first is exciting.'
Tournament wins don't have to come in the flesh to feel crazy good, either.
Veteran pro and Team PokerStars rep Lex Veldhuis took down $55,000 for winning the $1,000 buy-in Thursday Thrill last year. And even after winning countless tournaments both online and live, Veldhuis told the PokerStars Blog that having a Twitch live streaming audience on hand to offer support made the win especially gratifying.
'Winning a tournament is a crazy feeling.
Winning a tournament on Twitch feels like becoming Olympic champion. There is so much support along the way, and people really sweat it hard.
Whenever there is a bad situation, they support you after. Whenever there is a lot of tension, people say they actually can't watch.'
Finally, even after winning not one but two gold bracelets at the 2006 WSOP, pro, Jeff Madsen still felt just as passionate about tournaments more than a decade later.
Speaking to CardPlayer Magazine about his intention to never retire, Madsen alluded to the ever-present urge to win tournaments as his prime motivation:
'Tournaments are always exciting, because it's an all-or-nothing situation.
You can win a life-changing amount of money, or lose it all on the first hand. And, there's also just something great about winning a tournament.
You can win big in a cash game, and then you lose it all back the next day, and it's like it never happened. But if you win a tournament, even if you eventually lose all of that money, they can't take the title or the trophy away from you.'
Even the Best Players in the World Have Trouble Winning Consistently — Or at All
It might seem natural to assume that poker's elite talents have no difficulty playing their way to a first-place finish. After all, these are the game's most skilled practitioners, professionals who put food on the table through their success in tournament play.
But as it turns out, actually winning a tournament outright — not settling for a runner-up finish or a prize money 'chop' at the end — is incredibly difficult. The reality of tournament poker, and all gambling games for that matter is that statistical variance can wreak havoc on short-term results.
Over the course of a year or even a decade, no amount of volume is enough to balance out the effect of random variance.
That holds true for the most highly skilled players, too, although to a lesser degree.
Until the 'Super High Roller' trend starting to tilt the all-time money list towards those players in the last few years, Negreanu was the reigning leader for a decade running. Even today, his nearly $42 million in tourney earnings makes 'Kid Poker' #2 on the all-time leaderboard behind Bonomo.
As one would suspect from such gaudy numbers, Negreanu is no stranger to winning tournaments.
Or shall I say, he was no stranger?
Between the years of 1997 and 2013, Negreanu took first-place honors in an astounding 45 events. That list includes everything from $120 buy-in nightlies at the Commerce Casino to his six titles at the WSOP.
Silent hill 2 slot machine. The Silent Hill Pachi slot machine was developed by Takasago, a subsidiary of Konami Japan and was released on October 5th 2015. The machine is exclusive to Japan with no plans to release it elsewhere. The machine's storyline is based on that of Silent Hill 2 and features both characters and creatures from the game. Silent Hill Pachislot is a game for slot machines developed by Takasago, a subsidiary of Konami. The game's loosely based on Silent Hill 2 story and re-uses characters and creatures from it. The slot machine is targeted only for the Japanese market. Oct 05, 2015 Silent Hill, also referred to as Pachislot Silent Hill, is a pachislot game released in Japan in 2015. The game mainly follows the plot of Silent Hill 2 and features new content. 1 References 2 External links 3 Gallery 3.1 Official wallpapers Official website Promotional video with optional English captions Add a photo to this gallery Add a photo to this gallery. I assume it will most likely be like the 2015 Silent Hill pachislot, which used a combination of old footage from Silent Hill 2 and new action footage using that game's characters. The use of 'backed by a rich library of original titles' might indicate that elements will be pulled from across the brand though.
But because variance is inevitable for all of us, Negreanu hasn't experienced the thrill of tournament victory whatsoever in almost six years. That's right; his last win came way back in 2013 at the WSOP-Europe €25,600 buy-in No Limit Hold'em (High Roller) event.
Naturally, Negreanu does have ten runner-up finishes to his credit during the drought, but as he would be the first to tell you, nothing short of victory is acceptable.
In an interview with PokerCentral — conducted shortly after Negreanu came agonizingly close to his seventh gold bracelet at the 2017 WSOP with a second-place finish — Negreanu discussed his seemingly inexplicable winless streak of late:
'It's been kind of crazy that I haven't won one in Vegas in a very long time.
I was hoping by now to have probably nine or ten bracelets, but at this point in my career, I only have six.'
The recent spate of second-place runs suggests Negreanu should get off the proverbial schneid at some point very soon, but at nearly six years now, his winless streak is proof positive that variance is the only sure thing in tournament poker.
Despite all of his success on the WSOP stage — where he leads the all-time race by a mile with 15 gold bracelets — Hellmuth is experiencing similar drought in terms of World Poker Tour (WPT) titles.
Here's how the 'Poker Brat' has performed on the WPT circuit, widely considered the most prestigious of the year-long global tours.
Phil Hellmuth's WPT Stats
- Career Earnings = $1,568,116
- Cashes = 17
- Final Tables = 5
- Titles = 0
You read that correctly. The poker world's most decorated figure in terms of WSOP gold and glory is 0'fer on the WPT.
That career-long drought may be due to Hellmuth's singular focus on the bracelet chase, but he'd undoubtedly tell you that five final tables are more than enough opportunities to get over the hump.
After coming torturously close to ending the drought in 2017 when Hellmuth was the runner-up at the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event, he returned last year to make two consecutive deep runs.
The 7th and 15th finishes in $10,000 buy-in WPT Main Events must have fueled his passion to finally scratch a Tour title off his bucket list, because for his 2019 poker goals, Hellmuth listed a pair of victories.
A quick sketch of my 'Yearly Goals' (a 'life tip' I teach in my book #POSITIVITY); 2019 Goals! Written in erasable marker on the bathroom mirror of my room at Commerce Casino
#2 'Win 2 @WPT tourneys' – I'm still in @WPT here at Commerce #POSITIVITYpic.twitter.com/1Lg3qzaoz9
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 3, 2019
Another successful pro who knows the sting of extended winless streaks is East Coast legend Will 'The Thrill' Failla. With over $5.6 million in live tournament earnings, including 18 wins out of 244 in the money finishes, Failla is no stranger to success on the felt.
But he certainly felt like one back in 2016 when suffering through his second straight disaster of a WSOP summer. In 2015, after cashing only once while playing a full 50-event schedule, Failla found himself with just a lone cash 60 events through the 2016 WSOP campaign.
But after notching a badly needed final table run and fifth-place finish in the $ 1,500 No Limit Hold'em Bounty tournament, good for $71,049, Failla was on cloud nine. That's what he told CardPlayer Magazine in an interview entitled 'The Curse Has Been Lifted' that ran right after the final table run:
'You see, that's one thing so crazy about tournament poker. You can go ice cold for two years.
I know some guys who went 2.5 years without winning anything, despite grinding their asses off.
Then boom, you win a tournament, and you forget all about it. You knew it was there, but you forgot all about it thanks to one tournament.'
Asked about how he finds a way to push through the invariable losing streaks every poker player must cope with, Failla told CardPlayer that the dream of winning a title provides all the motivation he'll ever need:
'I run right thru it, about three or four miles a day. And every day during that jog I say to myself, ‘This could be the bracelet event. This could be the bracelet event.'
I hope and try, and hope and pray, and hope and try, and listen, I know one thing: It's going to happen. I just don't know when. Hopefully, it's going to be soon.
I keep grinding and churning, and I'm in it.'
With dedication like that, it's no wonder Failla found himself back at another WSOP final table nearly one year later to the day.
And although that opportunity in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em Monster Stack event — which awarded more than $1 million to the eventual champion — produced 'only' a ninth-place finish, Failla is still out there grinding in pursuit of his poker dreams to this day.
Winning the Whole Thing Is a Tournament Player's Lifeblood
On a final note, whether you're a star pro or an aspiring grinder, the sheer mathematics of poker tournament play makes outright victory a necessity.
In a brutally honest article entitled 'Why You'll Never Make A Living Playing Live Poker Tournaments' published in 2014 by Deadspin, poker player and writer Darrell Plant explains in exacting detail just how difficult sustained success in tournaments really is.
Plant begins by using an outlier example by introducing Chris Moorman, the reigning king of online poker tournament earnings.
As Plant tells the tale, Moorman's online tourney tracking data showed a seven-year span consisting of more than 14,000 entries recorded. And over that timeframe, Moorman made the money between 11-17% of the time, while generating a return on investment (ROI) percentage of 26.5%.
Plant goes on to posit that even if you were as good as Moorman — which, sorry to say, none of us are — you'd still need to put in nearly a quarter of a million dollars' worth of annual entries just to make a decent living.
'To make $60K with a 25% ROI, you need to play tournaments with a combined buy-in of $240,000. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars of buy-ins each year in order to make what is a little above average income in the US.
If that sounds like a lot of money, it is. It's also a lot of poker playing.
$240,000 of tournament entries per year is $20,000 of tournament entries each month, or about $5,000 per week for 48 weeks of the year (with four weeks off for good behavior). $1,000 per day, five days a week, if you want a weekend.'
Plant goes on to sort through the all-time tournament earning database before crunching the numbers to reveal that only a scant 0.5% cross the precious profitability threshold over their career.
The upshot of all these numbers is plain as day, with Plant providing the final commentary on just how important those top-heavy first-place payouts really are.
'Of the slightly less than a third of the best players who make a profit, five out of six are only profitable because of a single, large cash.'
Knowing these stone-cold facts, those iconic shots of Hellmuth — and every other major tournament winner — thrusting the arms up and jumping for joy start to make much more sense.
One big win can make the difference between a winning and losing year, a single peak serving to sustain players through the long valleys to come.
Conclusion
Ask any athlete who excels at tennis or golf about their most memorable moments in life, and you'll likely hear the phrase 'when I won the tournament' thrown in along the way.
The tournament format, whether in the athletic arena or at the poker table, distills competition down to its purist form. It's every player for themselves, and he or she who can outwit their opponents and survive every brush with elimination rightfully deserves to be crowned champion.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.
Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.
In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.
Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands
Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.
The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.
Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.
These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.
Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.
Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware
Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.
Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.
Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.
It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.
Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.
POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.
Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages
As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.
Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a strong hand like AK could be at a significant equity disadvantage facing a deep stacked opponents all-in range. Could you fold QQ here?
Rather than putting in an extra raise, often times just calling with even very strong hands in the early stage of a poker tournament has great benefits.
- Allows your opponents to continue with hands they were folding to a re-raise that you have crushed.
- Disguises the strength of your hand and keeps you unpredictable.
- Prevents you from getting all-in facing a super strong range where often times you're crushed.
Tip 4: Continuation Bet Aggressively But Not Always
Players have learnt the value of c-betting, but it's a strategy that is often misapplied. Being the preflop aggressor shouldn't lead to a mandatory c-bet and double barrels.
This is especially true in multi-way pots yet players continue to make fruitless c-bets with weak holdings into multiple opponents.
Even in heads-up situations, key factors to consider include;
- How does the flop texture interact with players ranges?
- Who has the strongest range?
- Who has nut advantage (the biggest share of super strong hands)?
- How passive or aggressive is the opponent we're facing?
- How does the stack size/SPR allow us to operate on the flop and future streets?
The following hand illustrates the effect nut advantage can have on profitable continuation betting and how it applies to this tournament poker tip:
Tip 5: Be ICM Aware
Until the 'Super High Roller' trend starting to tilt the all-time money list towards those players in the last few years, Negreanu was the reigning leader for a decade running. Even today, his nearly $42 million in tourney earnings makes 'Kid Poker' #2 on the all-time leaderboard behind Bonomo.
As one would suspect from such gaudy numbers, Negreanu is no stranger to winning tournaments.
Or shall I say, he was no stranger?
Between the years of 1997 and 2013, Negreanu took first-place honors in an astounding 45 events. That list includes everything from $120 buy-in nightlies at the Commerce Casino to his six titles at the WSOP.
Silent hill 2 slot machine. The Silent Hill Pachi slot machine was developed by Takasago, a subsidiary of Konami Japan and was released on October 5th 2015. The machine is exclusive to Japan with no plans to release it elsewhere. The machine's storyline is based on that of Silent Hill 2 and features both characters and creatures from the game. Silent Hill Pachislot is a game for slot machines developed by Takasago, a subsidiary of Konami. The game's loosely based on Silent Hill 2 story and re-uses characters and creatures from it. The slot machine is targeted only for the Japanese market. Oct 05, 2015 Silent Hill, also referred to as Pachislot Silent Hill, is a pachislot game released in Japan in 2015. The game mainly follows the plot of Silent Hill 2 and features new content. 1 References 2 External links 3 Gallery 3.1 Official wallpapers Official website Promotional video with optional English captions Add a photo to this gallery Add a photo to this gallery. I assume it will most likely be like the 2015 Silent Hill pachislot, which used a combination of old footage from Silent Hill 2 and new action footage using that game's characters. The use of 'backed by a rich library of original titles' might indicate that elements will be pulled from across the brand though.
But because variance is inevitable for all of us, Negreanu hasn't experienced the thrill of tournament victory whatsoever in almost six years. That's right; his last win came way back in 2013 at the WSOP-Europe €25,600 buy-in No Limit Hold'em (High Roller) event.
Naturally, Negreanu does have ten runner-up finishes to his credit during the drought, but as he would be the first to tell you, nothing short of victory is acceptable.
In an interview with PokerCentral — conducted shortly after Negreanu came agonizingly close to his seventh gold bracelet at the 2017 WSOP with a second-place finish — Negreanu discussed his seemingly inexplicable winless streak of late:
'It's been kind of crazy that I haven't won one in Vegas in a very long time.
I was hoping by now to have probably nine or ten bracelets, but at this point in my career, I only have six.'
The recent spate of second-place runs suggests Negreanu should get off the proverbial schneid at some point very soon, but at nearly six years now, his winless streak is proof positive that variance is the only sure thing in tournament poker.
Despite all of his success on the WSOP stage — where he leads the all-time race by a mile with 15 gold bracelets — Hellmuth is experiencing similar drought in terms of World Poker Tour (WPT) titles.
Here's how the 'Poker Brat' has performed on the WPT circuit, widely considered the most prestigious of the year-long global tours.
Phil Hellmuth's WPT Stats
- Career Earnings = $1,568,116
- Cashes = 17
- Final Tables = 5
- Titles = 0
You read that correctly. The poker world's most decorated figure in terms of WSOP gold and glory is 0'fer on the WPT.
That career-long drought may be due to Hellmuth's singular focus on the bracelet chase, but he'd undoubtedly tell you that five final tables are more than enough opportunities to get over the hump.
After coming torturously close to ending the drought in 2017 when Hellmuth was the runner-up at the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event, he returned last year to make two consecutive deep runs.
The 7th and 15th finishes in $10,000 buy-in WPT Main Events must have fueled his passion to finally scratch a Tour title off his bucket list, because for his 2019 poker goals, Hellmuth listed a pair of victories.
A quick sketch of my 'Yearly Goals' (a 'life tip' I teach in my book #POSITIVITY); 2019 Goals! Written in erasable marker on the bathroom mirror of my room at Commerce Casino
#2 'Win 2 @WPT tourneys' – I'm still in @WPT here at Commerce #POSITIVITYpic.twitter.com/1Lg3qzaoz9
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 3, 2019
Another successful pro who knows the sting of extended winless streaks is East Coast legend Will 'The Thrill' Failla. With over $5.6 million in live tournament earnings, including 18 wins out of 244 in the money finishes, Failla is no stranger to success on the felt.
But he certainly felt like one back in 2016 when suffering through his second straight disaster of a WSOP summer. In 2015, after cashing only once while playing a full 50-event schedule, Failla found himself with just a lone cash 60 events through the 2016 WSOP campaign.
But after notching a badly needed final table run and fifth-place finish in the $ 1,500 No Limit Hold'em Bounty tournament, good for $71,049, Failla was on cloud nine. That's what he told CardPlayer Magazine in an interview entitled 'The Curse Has Been Lifted' that ran right after the final table run:
'You see, that's one thing so crazy about tournament poker. You can go ice cold for two years.
I know some guys who went 2.5 years without winning anything, despite grinding their asses off.
Then boom, you win a tournament, and you forget all about it. You knew it was there, but you forgot all about it thanks to one tournament.'
Asked about how he finds a way to push through the invariable losing streaks every poker player must cope with, Failla told CardPlayer that the dream of winning a title provides all the motivation he'll ever need:
'I run right thru it, about three or four miles a day. And every day during that jog I say to myself, ‘This could be the bracelet event. This could be the bracelet event.'
I hope and try, and hope and pray, and hope and try, and listen, I know one thing: It's going to happen. I just don't know when. Hopefully, it's going to be soon.
I keep grinding and churning, and I'm in it.'
With dedication like that, it's no wonder Failla found himself back at another WSOP final table nearly one year later to the day.
And although that opportunity in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em Monster Stack event — which awarded more than $1 million to the eventual champion — produced 'only' a ninth-place finish, Failla is still out there grinding in pursuit of his poker dreams to this day.
Winning the Whole Thing Is a Tournament Player's Lifeblood
On a final note, whether you're a star pro or an aspiring grinder, the sheer mathematics of poker tournament play makes outright victory a necessity.
In a brutally honest article entitled 'Why You'll Never Make A Living Playing Live Poker Tournaments' published in 2014 by Deadspin, poker player and writer Darrell Plant explains in exacting detail just how difficult sustained success in tournaments really is.
Plant begins by using an outlier example by introducing Chris Moorman, the reigning king of online poker tournament earnings.
As Plant tells the tale, Moorman's online tourney tracking data showed a seven-year span consisting of more than 14,000 entries recorded. And over that timeframe, Moorman made the money between 11-17% of the time, while generating a return on investment (ROI) percentage of 26.5%.
Plant goes on to posit that even if you were as good as Moorman — which, sorry to say, none of us are — you'd still need to put in nearly a quarter of a million dollars' worth of annual entries just to make a decent living.
'To make $60K with a 25% ROI, you need to play tournaments with a combined buy-in of $240,000. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars of buy-ins each year in order to make what is a little above average income in the US.
If that sounds like a lot of money, it is. It's also a lot of poker playing.
$240,000 of tournament entries per year is $20,000 of tournament entries each month, or about $5,000 per week for 48 weeks of the year (with four weeks off for good behavior). $1,000 per day, five days a week, if you want a weekend.'
Plant goes on to sort through the all-time tournament earning database before crunching the numbers to reveal that only a scant 0.5% cross the precious profitability threshold over their career.
The upshot of all these numbers is plain as day, with Plant providing the final commentary on just how important those top-heavy first-place payouts really are.
'Of the slightly less than a third of the best players who make a profit, five out of six are only profitable because of a single, large cash.'
Knowing these stone-cold facts, those iconic shots of Hellmuth — and every other major tournament winner — thrusting the arms up and jumping for joy start to make much more sense.
One big win can make the difference between a winning and losing year, a single peak serving to sustain players through the long valleys to come.
Conclusion
Ask any athlete who excels at tennis or golf about their most memorable moments in life, and you'll likely hear the phrase 'when I won the tournament' thrown in along the way.
The tournament format, whether in the athletic arena or at the poker table, distills competition down to its purist form. It's every player for themselves, and he or she who can outwit their opponents and survive every brush with elimination rightfully deserves to be crowned champion.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.
Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.
In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.
Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands
Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.
The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.
Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.
These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.
Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.
Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware
Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.
Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.
Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.
It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.
Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.
POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.
Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages
As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.
Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a strong hand like AK could be at a significant equity disadvantage facing a deep stacked opponents all-in range. Could you fold QQ here?
Rather than putting in an extra raise, often times just calling with even very strong hands in the early stage of a poker tournament has great benefits.
- Allows your opponents to continue with hands they were folding to a re-raise that you have crushed.
- Disguises the strength of your hand and keeps you unpredictable.
- Prevents you from getting all-in facing a super strong range where often times you're crushed.
Tip 4: Continuation Bet Aggressively But Not Always
Players have learnt the value of c-betting, but it's a strategy that is often misapplied. Being the preflop aggressor shouldn't lead to a mandatory c-bet and double barrels.
This is especially true in multi-way pots yet players continue to make fruitless c-bets with weak holdings into multiple opponents.
Even in heads-up situations, key factors to consider include;
- How does the flop texture interact with players ranges?
- Who has the strongest range?
- Who has nut advantage (the biggest share of super strong hands)?
- How passive or aggressive is the opponent we're facing?
- How does the stack size/SPR allow us to operate on the flop and future streets?
The following hand illustrates the effect nut advantage can have on profitable continuation betting and how it applies to this tournament poker tip:
Tip 5: Be ICM Aware
The Independent Chip Model or ICM, is a great model players use to make more profitable decisions when deep in a tournament and especially at a final table.
Unlike in cash games, chip values fluctuate depending on the stage of the tournament and the competing opponents stack sizes. At it's most extreme, ICM strategy can make A♠A♣: an easy fold preflop.
Imagine a situation in a satellite where 9 players get a World Series of Poker entry and there's 10 remaining. The action folds around to a player with 100,000 in tournament chips who moves all in from the small blind. You're sitting in the big blind with A♠A♣: and also 100,000 in chips. You look around and see a few opponents with only 1000 chips left, which is the size of the current big blind. Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon.
Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon. Moreover the chance that they collectively out survive your 100,000 stack is extremely remote. You'd likely be a 99% chance to get a WSOP entry, so why would you call with your A♠A♣ and risk busting next around 20% of the time?
Aside from calling too wide in spots when the most profitable strategy is to proceed tightly, the opposite can also be true when it comes to pressuring your opponents. ICM allows players when they have the opportunity to assert pressure on there opponents stacks, to go ahead and do so liberally, since thinking opponents counter-strategy is to play a tight range of hands.
Here's an example of how drastically a hand range can change when the opportunity to assert pressure at a final table exists. 5 of the 6 remaining players at the Pokerstars Sunday Millions have 15bb's, whilst the UTG player has a short 2bb stack. Since the 15bb stacks wants to avoid busting out next and missing out on a large pay jump before the immanent bust out of the 2bb stack, the small blind can adjust their all-in range. Instead of the profitably 57% all-in range in normal play, they can move all-in with 100% of hands to apply pressure on the big blind.
Whilst the big blind should adjust their calling range from the regular 36% to just 10% of hands to account for the ICM effect in play.
The PokerNerve Road to Success course teaches players how to master ICM situations, which is key to tournament poker success since ICM comes into play as the prizes become significant. If there was only one tournament poker tip that you take away from this article, it's that you need to know ICM!
Tip 6: Bet The Appropriate Size
Strong players are capitalizing on their opponents tendencies to bet too big or too small in a number of different situations. With some similar considerations to that of continuation betting, when selecting a bet size important aspects include;
- Which player's range does the board texture favor?
- Who has the greatest nut saturation?
- How does SPR influence our betting strategy
There are many great articles online about bet sizing. You should be sure to check out ThePokerBank's and the Pokerology's to learn more about this tournament tip.
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Tip 7: Take Equity Realization Into Account
Possibly due to the popularity growth of Twitch, many poker players approach to big blind play has evolved. The current trend is to defend the big blind with virtually any 2 cards, as some top pros elect to do, and the justification for this is taking advantage of the excellent pot odds being offered.
While the inclusion of antes combined with commonly seeing a small open raise size does offer the big blind generous pot odds, this has led to a fundamental flaw in the way many players approach big blind play in poker tournaments. The key concept overlooked, is equity realization.
Equity realization reflects a players ability to take a certain hand, and win their share of the pot, frequently enough, to make it profitable in the long-term. Although some top pros have the ability to win their equity share of the pot even out of position, less skilled players rarely do. This leads to a large chip loss in the long run.
It is quite difficult to realize of your equity when out of position, with no initiative and a weak range. This means them glorious odds you are being offered aren't quite as good as you think!
The following article explains this crucial tournament poker tip in more detail; Equity Realization.
Tip 8: Don't Miss Double And Triple Barrel Opportunities
'One and done' is the plight of many aspiring tournament poker players. Everyday at the tables I see players missing profitable opportunities to double, or even triple barrel. Understanding what turn and river cards are advantageous to a players range, along with opponent tendencies, are crucial parts of a winning barreling formula.
The most common scenario at the table, is a heads-up pot where the big blind calls an open-raise. And this happens to be a great spot to barrel. Big blind defenders have a wide range, and it's important to pressure this wide range, especially on only partially connected board textures with one or multiple high cards.
RedChipPoker has a great article on spotting profitable double barrel opportunities which you can read here: THE +EV DOUBLE BARREL GUIDE
Tip 9: Check-Raise More Flops
The biggest difference between the current tournament population, and the future generation, will likely be their approach to check-raising the flop. This opportunity typically occurs in a heads-up pot, after defending the big blind verse an opponents raise.
Currently, MTT players only check-raise the flop in this situation around 7-8% of the time, when closer to 20% is a more optimal strategy. On certain flop textures, check-raising close to 25% of the time is an extremely profitable strategy. And if players are getting out of line with their c-bets, then check-raising at an even higher frequency could be a profitable exploit.
By giving up too easily on a wide range of board textures, or taking a more passive approach and simply calling, c-betting can be done with reckless abandon. However, by selecting a nice mix of check-raising hands, combining some strong hands with some good semi-bluffing candidates, a check-raiser can become tricky to play against and exploit the average players tendency to over c-bet.
POKER TIP: Applied correctly and check-raising becomes a super powerful weapon in your arsenal leading to more profitable poker results. But also think beyond the flop, there's plenty of check-raising opportunities you may be missing. This video demonstrates an interesting turn check-raise situation.
We discuss check raising strategy in more detail in our post over on unfeltedpoker.com.
Tip 10: Develop A Good 3betting Strategy
Whilst 3 betting aggressively is a strategy many players employ, especially in online poker circles, failure to apply optimal 3 betting strategies has certainly led to a lot of spewy poker. Simply attacking opponents who are suspected of opening wide doesn't cut it in the modern poker world.
Players have learnt to deal with 3 bets more profitably, by mixing in some calls with timely 4 bets. Moreover, the role stack size plays when it comes to 3 betting it still largely misunderstood by much of the poker community.
Sure there are certain stack sizes where 3 bets gain a lot of leverage, but how about the role blockers play? And when is 9♦7♦ a better 3 bet candidate than K♦T♠ ? These are just some of the considerations when it comes to a profitable 3 betting strategy. See how to design strong 3betting ranges in this article by Donkr.
Bonus Poker Strategy Tip: Avoid and Deal with Downswings
As a poker player you want to earn your money as easily and as stress-free as possible right? Well, understanding ROI, variance and bankroll management can help (see TopPokerValue's article on bankroll management).
All poker players at some point experience downswings. In some cases, this can affect their play, volume or state of mind.
You'll be miserable, hating poker, playing less and earning less per tournament as your play will suffer.
Along with finding ways that work for you to keep a positive mindset, taking pro-active steps can help keep you confident by knowing you are dealing with the situation like a professional whilst at the same time taking positive action to get back on track and winning.
What is ROI and variance?
Every tournament you enter has an EV associated with it. So if you enter a $10 tourney, as a good player maybe you have a 30% ROI, so you make $3. So it doesn't matter whether you brick that tourney or win it for $5000, you make $3 in the long run.
Now, of course, you don't make $3 each time. 80-85% of the time you lose that $10, some percentage of the time you win a little bit, and some very small percentage of the time you win a lot. How small those ‘small percentages' are primarily depends on not only your skill edge, but also the field size which is an extremely important concept that is often ignored.
Variance is a factor of two things:
1) Your edge
2) The field size
Example 1)
You play the Hot $55 which has $30K guaranteed, every day for a year on Pokerstars. It has 1600 runners and you have a 5% ROI, because turbo ROIs are small. Your average yearly profit is $605 however you will lose money on the year 55% of the time.
Example 2)
You play a $20 tourney with $3K guaranteed on a softer site every day for a year. It has 200 runners and you have a 30% ROI, because it's a normal speed tourney and you're against an easier field. Your average yearly profit is $2400 and in this case you lose money only 12% of the time.
A lot of people would look at those two tournaments and make a decision based on the buy-in and 1st place prize money as to which was better to play, and it would be grossly wrong. Once you accept all the above, you realise that the 'up top' number is largely meaningless.
Poker Tournament Tips From The Pros 2019
Yes, on the same site bigger fields may mean a lot of fish have registered to play, but you'll find a lot of small field, soft, non-peak hour tournaments have a great pro-to-fish ratio and hence are great value. Of course once you consider other sites that have smaller fields, you'll often find they are a better choice than what might be running on Pokerstars.
So what can you do?
When players start losing money and along with that, confidence, not only does their game deteriorate but they often compound that problem by failing to make rational decisions. Often losing players, or players on a downswing, go 'bink chasing' and decide to take a shot to win all their money back in one tourney. Or load up some quick $82 hyper-turbos to try to turn it all around quickly.
People get overly fixated on what's 'up top' and wanting to score big in one tournament. That's a sure-fire strategy to fuel a down swing. If your house got knocked down would you try to slap it back up in a week? Take that opportunity to rebuild a better, stronger house.
Make sure you're adding in some study and keep focused (see Sky's Matsuhashi How To Study Poker series), and stay fresh and positive as you approach each session. Be smart and get back into profit quicker instead of enduring a 6-12 month variance rollercoaster!
Closing Words On Tournament Poker Tips
Poker is a multi-faceted game which makes it fun but challenging. Challenge yourself to factor in the relevant concepts, and make more profitable decisions. Tighten up from the big blind, and in general around the table. This tip often quickly improves a new players results, or those that have a got a little sloppy with their play.
Calculate stack size using 'M'. Always be aware of your own, and your opponents stack sizes so you don't get yourself caught in awkward situations. One awkward situation that often comes up is when you hold an overpair to the board and an opponent puts the heat on you. Don't be afraid to make big lay downs to preserve your stack, especially in the early levels.
Be aware of your cbetting frequency. There's no need to waste tournament poker chips cbetting every time, especially when the pot is multi-way. Pick your spots to make profitable plays. Remember when it comes to the final table, regularly profitable playing ranges might alter due to the payouts. ICM is the key when it comes to those final big decisions.
Another key to success is knowing when to fire multiple bullets at your opponents. Barreling, especially against a wide big blind range can really help increase your non-showdown winnings. Finding ways to accumulate chips without always having the best hand is what top players do. This is why check-raising and having a good 3 betting strategy is so important. Correct use of these strategical concepts and the other tips outlines will get you winning more at the tables.
Now that you've acquired some great holdem tournament strategy tips to help you achieve MTT success, go out there an implement them!
One of the quickest way to improve your poker game is to take on a poker coaching, a course or join a poker training site; if that is something that interests you be sure to check out the PokerNerve road to Success Course for some advanced poker tournament strategy or you can check out HowToPlayPokerInfo's guide on poker training & poker courses to find the right option for you.
Any other poker tournament strategy tips? Leave them below in the comments, we would love to hear them!
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Poker Tournament Tips From The Prosperity
