Advanced Poker Tournament Strategy

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This advanced tournament article is meant for those players who are already familiar with playing tournament poker and specifially no limit MTT games. The concepts covered in this guide will refer to advanced terms and concepts like folding equity, position, image and implied value. If you are unfamiliar with these topics, please read our basic tournament guide, which will introduce you to many of these poker strategies and concepts.

Aggression Theory and Knockout Factor

Tournament poker and no limit poker are widely known to reward the players that are most aggressive. This means that no limit poker tournaments are ripe for the aggressive player to do well, if they are able to maintain control. The question that most people have though, is why is aggression so rewarded in this game format? We'll go over that now.

Many people like playing tournaments because they only have to buy-in once. This means that after their money is in, they no longer have to worry about losing their money because in essence, they are already "all-in" so to speak. This causes some players to play loose and crazy. For others, playing in tournaments means playing conservative, because being knocked out means that there is no chance to buy back into a tournament (except rebuy tournaments). For these players, playing tight is imperative because they don't want to risk being knocked out. We will call this the knockout factor - or KF for short.

Aggression theory comes into play with no limit tournaments, because the aggressive players will often be the ones controlling the game when there is a table filled with players that are scared of KF. Aggressive players aren't scared of being knocked out and play loose and wild, while the tight players are scared of action and will often let go of hands in favor of playing it safe. Thus in the overall context of a tournament, the person that is the most aggressive will often win the most chips, because their opponent is afraid or unwilling to defend their hand.

Early Game - Build Chips or Bust

Unlike cash games, where a constant Tight-Aggressive strategy is drilled over and over again, tournament play often requires that you get a little creative with your play outside of the simply 'tight' zone. This isn't a license to play loose and aggressive, but one of the most important concepts to realize is that chip building is essential to survival in a poker tournament - especially no limit hold'em.

Play with the Fish

Many times, just playing tight and betting people out of a pot is difficult early in a tournament, because poor players do not look at bets relative to your bet or pot, but instead look at it relative to their chip stack. These poor players are the types that will be bleeding chips early on in a tournament, so it is essential that you capitalize on their weakness and exploit it. The way to do this is through implied value.

Implied Value is your Friend

A hand such as JTs is known to a strong player to be a marginal hand. In a tournament with the right situation though, JTs and other such suited connectors can be a very powerful hand when there is a large degree of implied value riding in the pot. Being in late position with speculative or drawing hands when there are many loose limpers in the pot is a very beneficial situation in tournaments. The benefit comes from being able to be in good position to play your hand depending on sheer odds alone. In addition, it gives you various angles of attack if you decide to play outside the odds and try to gain fold equity on your opponents by playing aggressive behind them.

The biggest factor however, is that your hand is often well disguised when you are playing on the strategy of fold equity. When your opponent refuses to believe that you played a certain poker hand, he is much more likely to pay you off when you do hit. That player will be unable (or unwilling) to properly gauge your hand strength and make a major mistake on reading your hand. Thus, what would otherwise be a mathematical mistake for you in terms of drawing odds in poker, may in fact turn into a beneficial odds situation in terms of implied value.

Position yourself against Weak or Tight Players

Players who have solid poker fundamentals will often make a major mistake in poker tournaments that they don't make in cash games. That mistake is being too patient.

In a cash poker game, the goal (especially at low limits) is often to wait for a good hand, a good flop and a bad opponent to pay you out. Easy as 1-2-3. The problem is that in tournament games, you often don't have enough time to wait or simply won't get good enough cards. This becomes a major dillema to the solid "tight and aggressive" player, who starts becoming dejected and anxious, complaining about his impossible run of bad cards and inability to win a pot. To be a tournament player, you must cast aside this type of thinking and make things happen for yourself. This is why aggressive play is the correct strategy in poker tournaments. When you then consider again that aggression is important in no limit poker, you can start to see why aggression is the focal point of your strategy in no limit poker tournaments.

The Playing Chicken with a Chicken Strategy

To use aggression, you must use it on someone who will respect it. A calling station or just a sheer poker idiot isn't someone that will respect you. That's why you have to go and find someone who does. This person is called a weak player. Someone that will simply wait for a strong hand, make a huge monster on the flop and hope that someone is stupid enough to stay in the pot when they finally start betting and raising. Sound familiar?

What you want to do, is look for this weak player and start pushing him around selectively. The easiest application is to simply raise her or her blinds and snatch the hand right there. This may have a limited shelf-life however, as a keen player at the table will realize what you are doing and put in some counter-moves (i.e., raises). The weak player may also try to play back at you when he finally stands up and tries to stand up to your bullying.

That said however, the proper strategy after being confronted by the player is to simply back down, sit quiet for a little, then continue again with your harassment. If your constant bullying is able to deprive that player of his chips, then keep putting the pressure on him along with the other weak players at the table.

On the more advanced level, other than simple strong-arming of your opponents' blinds, a more sophisticated and daring method is the simple limp or check-raise. If a weak opponent is in the big blind and it's folded to you in late position, you should limp in with any hand. When the flop comes, your weak opponent will almost always check to you, at which you toss a normal bet onto the table. More often than not, this will win the pot outright. This type of strategy utilizes both position and table reads to give you a chance at chips with a minimal risk. In addition, in the event you do make a monster hand with rags, your holdings will be very well disguised.

Check-raises (or flat out raises) are another great tool to use against tight players, when timed correctly. An example is being in the big blind with a weak player playing behind you. The flop comes rags, which most likely hasn't helped your opponent, provided he isn't holding pocket pairs. On this type of flop, betting out is usually good enough to win right there. If you get called, you can almost be certain that your opponent has a hand of some sort. This means that you can check-fold the turn... or possibly check-raise the turn if you are sure your opponent has a weak enough hand to fold to major aggression.

In late position, raising an opponent on a bluff or steal is often safer however, since you aren't put in the awkward position of checking the turn if your opponent decides to call. In the majority (but NOT all), if a weak opponent calls a raise on the flop and checks the turn, they likely have a hand that is decent but not a monster. Whether or not they will fold is a decision that you must be able to make. Hopefully if you have them pegged as the weak player to attack, you will know they will fold. Otherwise, you are in a sticky situation if they call another turn bet, as you'll almost certainly have no way of pushing them out of a pot on the river.

Maximizing Fold Equity and Mathematical Survival

When short stacked or even mid-stacked, you will often be in a situation where a half-pot or pot-sized bet means putting a significant portion of your chips into the middle of the table. If you are ever in a position where you need to put a good percentage of your chips into the pot, you should often go ahead and simply push all in. You do this for a few reasons:

Your opponent can't make a move on you if you are all-in

When against good, aggressive or tricky opponents, you will be vunerable to having a move made against you when you are holding the better hand. Especially on boards that look dangerous or very innocent, your opponent may see the opportunity to make a play against you by going over the top. By simply pushing all-in, you negate your opponent's ability to gain any kind of fold equity on you, for the obvious reason that you're fully committed to the hand. This strategy is often a little blunt and should be avoided if you have much more chips in comparison to the pot, but don't be afraid to use this as a deterrent to keep players out.

Showdown avoidance - Even good edges work against you in the long run

In the event that you have a strong hand in these situations, while you have a leading edge on your opponent, you are still being forced into a showdown situation - which is something you want to try and avoid in any large multi-table tournaments. The reason you want to avoid showdowns is very simple - you will never have enough edges over the long term to have a reasonable chance of surviving.

If this doesn't make sense, think of a craps table. The chances of rolling craps is 1 out of 6 - or 5:1 odds. Compare this with the odds of pocket Aces vs pocket 22 - which is 4:1 odds (in favor of the Aces, of course). Now, if you play craps or roll dice at all, you'll realize that the chances of rolling craps on any single roll is slim. However, if you play at a craps table long enough, you'll know that eventually, someone will roll craps. It might take a few rolls and some rollers might even be hot for 20 or 30 rolls, but eventually everyone hits craps and busts out.

If you apply the above example to multi-table poker tournaments, each showdown where you are at risk of losing significant chips or being knocked out is the equivalent of being busted out with craps. This is to say, that while you might have the better odds at winning a single roll, taking a large amount of chances will expose you to the laws of probability. This is why proper strategy absolutely requires that you accumulate a large stack of chips early on, in order to ride out the variance of all-in confrontations later down the road.

One question you may have then, is how are people supposed to win tournaments then? The answer is - luck. Even the best poker players in the world have to survive multiple all-ins in any major tournament in order to make it to the final table. This isn't luck in terms of sucking out or 'getting lucky', but it's more like 'staying lucky'. This means that not only must you be ahead in all-in situations (and mind you, there are many race situations where you are only ahead by about a 5-10% edge), that your hands must consistently hold up against the long term odds.

Go hard or go home - The Super Suckout

Sometimes you will be in a bad situation where you have a weak or mediocre holding against what you imagine is a better hand. On it's own merit, your hand is almost impossible to call against a raise or push because it is simply too weak. However, if you are in a bad situation overall, with a low chip count, then strategy starts to shift a little in the other direction.

If you find that you will be severely crippled by folding this hand in terms of chips (enough so that you will realistically have no chance in the tournament), you might as well call off the rest of your chips. The reason is that even though you are putting yourself at bad odds to call while you are behind, the value of the chips in the pot is most likely greater than the value of chips you will be left with. For instance, if you only have enough chips to survive a round of blinds, you will almost certainly be blinded out with a mediocre hand and knocked out of the tournament. Even in the event that you survive multiple all-ins, you still must overcome major odds to build a stack.

On the other hand, if you take a chance at sucking out your opponent, you are still facing bad odds, but at least can come out with a big stack of chips in the event that you do win. For this reason, when you are in situations where you know you are committed (even on the bad end of things) you want to take control and be the aggressor. Hopefully, you may be able to leverage whatever remaining chips you have as fold equity.

Maximizing Fold Equity

By sheer brute force, going all-in prevents your opponent from making a difficult call, especially if he has less chips than you. For the very same reason you want to avoid showdowns, a good opponent will also want to avoid a showdown. If your opponent has a mediocre hand, they will be very reluctant to call even if they are relatively certain they have you beat.

Often, you'll see a player who dump away all his chips by checking a hand, then calling all their chips off when their opponent pushes. If you are ever in the situation to be this person, instead of just waiting for your opponent to push, be the one that pushes instead! If you're going to call anyways, you might as well gain some fold equity on your opponent, however small it is. There's nothing to lose by it, so always take the lead if you are going to jump on the wagon anyways.

Conclusion - Make plays, don't wait around for premium hands

This is a practical no-brainer if you have followed all the advice above, but I have to assert the concept of playing smart. Playing aggressive is good, but when applied blindly, can lead to major issues in your game. Knowing when to use aggression to make well timed steals, bluffs and tricks against your opponent is the key to becoming a solid tournament player.

Learning how to adjust your game and varying up your level of aggression is the biggest trick to keeping your opponents on their toes. Being able to hide a big hand when your opponents think you are bullying them around will give you the edge to punish your opponents in no limit. At the same time, being able to scare your opponents away with a weak hand when they think you are strong, is just as important in your strategy toolbox.

Anyhow, hope this mini-guide has helped you get some more ideas on advanced poker tournament strategies. Good luck at the poker tables and whatever site you may play at.