Poker Tournament Tips

Tournament style poker action could be one of the most thrilling and exciting experiences on offer when you are playing poker, the thought that every player is looking to find that power hand that will eliminate as many players as they can in order to produce a stronger standing within the leader board with the goal to reach the final table and furthermore to take the victory.

With poker tournaments offering a huge amount of interest within the poker industry, it's no surprise that tournaments are often contested by a large number of players, meaning that the prize pool on offer creates a great return for your investment should you win the tournament.

But with so many players looking to take the number one position in the tournament and ultimately the victory, you have to be able to hold your corner in times of poor play and when you run into a player who has more knowledge or experience than you.

In order to improve your tournament poker game, we can break down a number of tips that will help to send you deep into the tournament rather than finding yourself heading to the rails before you have even made your seat warm.

So what tips can I as an experienced tournament poker player with more than $50,000 in tournament cashes offer you as you race for victory in your next tournament?

Always play tight at the beginning of the tournament

As with many tournaments that you will see and play within, there seems to always be a number of players who are there to make the game more about the luck of the cards than the skill of playing poker.

With these players active within the tournament, playing poker against them simply isn't going to work if you get drawn into their poor approach and strategy, you need to avoid these players until you have a monster hand and then exploit them for all you can.

These players don't often last too long and by the time that the first break happens, you can expect to have seen 95% of these players listed within the knocked out player listings, so you can now look to play your game a little looser should you wish to do so.

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As the game progresses, become more aggressive

This point means that as the forced bets (blinds and ante) increase through the levels, you need to be looking to alter you game to suit the action requirement at that point.

Failure to step up your game from how you were playing when the blinds were at a low level will result in a high number of lost chips from your stack, as you will be less likely to defend you chips to the strength needed to retain them.

Poker Tournament Bankroll Management

Tournament selection is just as important as ring table selection and with tournaments now been offered in stakes from as little as $1 right up to the other end of the scale with tournaments featuring buy ins of more than $1,000+.

The unwritten rule that is held for this would be that you would ensure that you can buy into the same value tournament a minimum of 50 times, although your not going to do so, you need to be sure that one chance in a tournament that could feature a vast amount of players as a final chance offers a huge risk and could well see you broke.

Make sure that you protect your poker bankroll and should you find that the funds within your account begin to fall, take a step down from the stake levels and rebuild your funds.

Make sure that you have that killer instinct

You could be the best tournament poker player in the world but if you can't finish off a tournament due to the lack of Heads Up poker ability, you are never going to win a tournament.

Tournament poker play means that you have to draw on a complete armoury of poker ability in order to be crowned champion and so if you poker game is weak in a number of aspects, you can expect to be lucky to hit the paying positions within the final standings.

Make sure that you have studied the game and the strategy that is so widely available to create a complete and well rounded poker player.

What do you know about your opponents?

As many of you will know, tournament poker can see you been forced to change tables a number of times, meaning that you will have to draw conclusions on your opponents all over again.

It's happened to me, I was seated at a table and was finally getting on top of the players at the table after finding a number of betting patterns and tells that players seemed to offer at the tables.

The time came and I was sudden rushed away from the table to make numbers up on another completely new table, leaving me with all of my analysis to start all over again.

A little later in the tournament, a familiar name appeared at the table, it was one of the players who I felt had been able to get an edge over from the earlier poker tables.

But after playing at my new table for a number of minutes and trying to focus on the players seated around me now, I had forgotten whether this player was the one who was betting 3 times the big blind on nothing or if he was the semi bluffer from before.

Take notes and avoid this happening again. Simple.

Use your tournament standing to your advantage

It has been seen so many times before where a player has managed to get into a hefty chip lead within a tournament but has let their play slip or they even opt to sit out for a large percentage of the action.

This is something that could see the difference between you winning a poker tournament or being the player that everyone is looking to steal chips from due to your lack of willingness to play any sort of hand.

The fact of the tournament is that although its been written all over the internet that it shouldn't happen, the fact of the matter is that it does, the player with the highest chip count is instantly offered a level of respect.

You need to learn how to use any respect that is given to you by other players to your advantage, it could make the difference between if a player is going to make a call against your raise or if they are going to stay clear of the action.

It's not the taking part that matters…. Play to win!

One of the worst sayings ever created has to be the "It's the taking part that matters" saying and has to have been created by someone who has very won anything in their life!

If you are going to play any poker game, you have to play to win, after all its real money at stake and real money for you to get you hands on.

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