So you’ve mastered the basics of Hold’em and done well for yourself in cash and tournament games, but find yourself falling short whenever you play a “winner take all” event. What are you doing wrong?
Winner take all games are fundamentally different than cash games or regular poker tournaments that pay out on a scale. There is no “in the money” or “cashing” in a winner take all poker tournament, there is only “winning.”
A typical winner take all poker game has a buy in like a regular tournament, and all the buy ins contribute to the prize pool. Unlike a regular tourney, however, the prize pool isn’t divided among the top percentage of winners, but only paid out to the first place finisher. This means (and here is the important part) that finishing second has the same value as busting out first: zero.
When making decisions in a poker tournament one considers how likely the choice will lead first to cashing and second to moving up the cash ladder, and finally to winning. This means that choices will be made to stay in an event that may not have been made in a cash game, where it wouldn’t matter. In a winner take all event, however, things change just a little bit more.
There is value in staying in a poker event, of course, because once a player busts out there is zero chance they will win the event. There comes a time, however, when the blinds are high enough, and a player’s chip stack is low enough, that staying in the game is useless unless he can radically increase his chip stack. At this point poker players will be taking bigger risks -- and be correct in doing so -- because they know if they bust out, they didn’t do any worse than second place.
Keep this in mind the next time you are playing in a winner take all game: play more towards building chips for leverage than just surviving, and you will have a greater chance of taking it all.
Click here to try your Winner Take All strategy at Blue Square Poker