subject: Poker Tournament Strategy [print this page] Poker Tournament Strategy Poker Tournament Strategy
Playing poker tournaments requires for players to alter their poker strategy in order to be able to adjust to their situation and increase their chances of success.
The main alteration at many make when deciding to participate in Poker Tournaments is that they have to loosen up their play, increasing their willingness to play hands that are not considered to be premium starter hands or they have to run the risk of the blinds chipping away at their chip stack, something that in latter stages of a poker tournament would prove to be costly as the blinds increase.
Realising that poker tournaments attract a large variation of poker players who possess completely different levels of ability is completely vital, allowing you to remember that you have to be able to be versatile within your play should you wish to overcome the many different styles of play that you will meet during the tournament.
Approaching the game with the right mentality is also key to successful participation as if you are not focused on the tournament that you have ahead of you, you will find that your performance will drop significantly and that you will be more likely to make mistakes and incorrect plays, actions that you know you shouldn't have made.
During the early stages of the tournament, you need to be looking to use starter cards which you are comfortable with playing, this doesn't mean waiting for the likes of pocket Aces, more that you would play the likes of King/Ten.
As players begin to drop out of the tournament, that is when you should be looking to tighten up your play slightly, not looking to completely shut out your position within the tournament, more like reducing the width of hand values that you would be willing to play slightly.
