Guide to playing a poker tournament

Many poker players ask how they should change their style of play for a poker tournament. Assuming they are good players, the answer is small. It is a mistake to think that there should be severe changes just because you are playing a tournament.

There are few changes, however, that you should take into account. These changes are based on a few factors that distinguish tournaments from other normal poker games;

• The other players are likely to play differently than usual.
• You can win the second or third prize with only a few chips.
• If you lose your chips, you should leave the game.
• You can't choose your rivals but you can usually count on going to a different table as players get knocked out and tables combine.

Let us see how the above four factors affect your strategy.

• Whereas the fact that you are playing a tournament should not change your poker strategy that much, the fact is that most players do change their strategy a great poker deal. This in turn must affect your strategy. You will find that several rivals are playing much tighter than they normally do. This means you must also tighten up, especially tightening up your calls and value bets. Furthermore, you should be inclined to bluff as your rival will be more inclined to fold than the normal.

• Most of the tournament pay prizes for second and third place (some pay down to the ninth place). A standard prize structure is sixty percent and ten percent for third. Because of this, your strategy should change during the last stage of a tournament when there are only few players left. This is true if you have very few chips. If you have, say, a very short stack and there are four players left, you should play very tightly in the expectation that one of the other players will get knocked out. Now you fall into third place. (This strategy is not applicable to tournaments in which you only keep the value of the chips you have in front of you when the tournament ends.)

However, if you find yourself with a lot of chips against two or three short stacks, you can steal the blind as they keep folding, expecting that some other player will go broke.

If you find yourself with few chips near the end and notice that the other players are anteing off their money waiting for you to go broke then you should change your strategy and gamble.

• If you are the one of the better players at your table you should try to prevent risking your chips on any one hand unless you are a big favourite. In a regular game, you can buy more chips if you go broke with the expectation of getting even. In a tournament, as the best player, you are better off not pushing small edges if this risks you going broke. Instead, make sure you have chips to play another hand (This rule does not apply if you are allowed an additional buy-in if you go broke.)

•If you are at a very tough table that figures to be broken up immediately play very conventionally so that you can be sure you will have chips when you go to an easier table. However, if there are only tough tables left, go ahead and play your normal game as things don't figure to get better.