Top 10 Tournament Tips

Deanna Goodson - 11 Apr 2008

Poker experts often give different conflicting advice on the best way to play winning tournament poker. This can be quite confusing, for new players especially. The most important thing to remember is that you have to decide what advice works best in your situation and with your style of play. Remember – poker is a game of situations.

Here are ten tips that can help you play winning tournament poker. How you apply them is up to you.

  1. Play like you mean it. Pretend you’re at the final table of the WSOP every time you’re playing in a tournament.
  2. Betting is better than calling. Calling doesn’t give you any information. Betting can get a player to show you something interesting about their hand, including a fold. 
  3. Use the all-in to keep players from drawing out on you. In no-limit, you have the advantage of going all-in anytime. This action, when executed properly, can force other players out of the pot.
  4. Change gears. By keeping your opponents guessing, you can really build your chip stack and improve your chances to win any tournament.
  5. Don’t dance with the bigger stacks. You don’t want to play against people who can bust you unless you are sure you have the best of it. Rather, pick on the smaller stacks to build up your chips. This works especially well in the middle to late stages of an event.
  6. Play the player. Mix up your play depending upon who you’re playing with. With an aggressive player, go slow. With a tight player, become more aggressive.
  7. Have a strategy going into the game. Think about how you want to play and follow through. Of course, your strategy should be flexible enough to allow for changes based on table and player conditions.
  8. When your chips get low, pick a spot and go all-in. The danger zone occurs when you only have between 5 and 10 times the big blind left in chips. So, pick a decent hand, go all in and pray to the poker gods for luck.
  9. Play valuable hands in relation to the size of your table. You have to know the value of your hands. When your table is full, bigger hands are needed to win. When your table is short-handed, you can play more hands.
  10. Practice online. There’s always a game going on at the right price for you online. Practice makes perfect, right?

You can practice your online game at ClubWPT today. Click here to sign up now!





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