Poker Players – Tournament Play Early in the event, the only way that a smart player can ensure victory is by aggressive play. However, this style of play has a distinct disadvantage. It is very easy for your opponents to spot your King-King or Queen-Queen and beat you very quickly. They may be rushing on T to try to coin a hand or perhaps just chasing a hand from the Small Blind or Big Blind. This style of betting pattern is actually the best way to lose control of your chip stack and end up being a little too loose later in the event.
Poker Players – Tournament Play
As your opponents’ chip stacks get smaller and smaller, the amount of money you spend to chase hands and the times that you spend in blinds will greatly increase. This is not to say that you should fold or be passive with your big hands. We are just saying that as your opponents’ blinds get smaller, you should consider taking smaller risks to keep them in the pot and win it yourself.
A lot of players only consider tournament play as the final hallway to get their four walls. However, even in the middle and later stages of tournaments there are ways to accumulate chips and grow your stack. Two ways to do this are either to win big pots or to steal blinds. We will discuss both in other articles.
The next reason for making an early attempt at stealing the blinds is that the structure of the game is closer to a bank hand than a tournament hand. When playing Hold’em, you want to build your stack in the later stages to overcrowd the table and force the play against your hand. Furthermore, you want to put your hand in with the best hand. Blinds that protect your hand are crucial to growing your stack.
The other benefit of blind stealing in the later stages is that you put yourself in a situation where you can easily win a coin flip or a small pot. If you happen to coin a hand or you are able to pick a good flop, you are likely to increase your stack by a sustantial amount, often to the point of imbalance. From the Small Blind or the Big Blind, you can certainly take a bigger leap of confidence into higher stages of the game. There is also an important psychological aspect to taking the initiative.
The other players are Expecting you to do this. They are attempting to read you and determine if you have a good hand or not. They know that as the blinds get bigger and slower for you, the more likely they are to call you as an underdog. In other words, if you have a big stack and someone starts raising the pot, your hand is looking pretty shaky. In that sense, they are making a gamble every round whether you like it or not.
The other players are additionally putting you on a range of hands. They are more likely to risk their chips on a play they think is something evil. They aren’t sure whether or not you actually have better cards than them, and they don’t want to take the risk that the true oddsSay – your odds of winning are a little higher than the odds they are putting you on, which might indicate a call. They are willing to assume that you have better cards than them, but they don’t want to say so directly. indirectly, they might not be willing to go to the degree they think you do unless they have better hands than you do, which doesn’t happen often.
The opposite kind of player is the one that only plays good hands. If they only play good hands, they are fairly honest about the fact that they are a stronger player. And, since they are playing with a shorter stack, they don’t want to take too many chances. If you are willing to play pots against them, be careful about when you play the pot. If they are raising, you should probably fold unless the pot is really small. Poker Players – Tournament Play
