Hold'Em - Tournament Strategy

Winning tournaments requires a great deal of skill, and some luck. Unlike cash games, you can play well for hours in a tournament, and then play one hand wrongly, and you will have nothing to show for your trouble!

Winning tournaments requires different skills from ring games. To win a tournament with say 1500 players, would require 1499 players to be knocked out. Even the best players in the world cannot guarantee to win a tournament. To win a tournament you will need your fair share of luck. However, given an average dose of luck, and employing good strategy you should be able to enter into the money winning positions.

The best piece of advice we can give you is to be patient. At the start of a tournament the blinds are low. You do not have to play bad hands, or even hands with a coin-flip(i.e. one where you could win, or you could lose, in almost equal chances). Only play hands where you have good implied odds(i.e. the value of the pot you could win, is worth the bet you are making). Never bet on a coin-flip unless the implied odds are excellent, instead wait for a better hand. You can play hundreds of hands in a tournament game, so there is no need to take unnecessary risks.

In the latter stages of the tournament, when the blinds go up, then you may find other players trying to steal your blinds. You should see our section on Protecting Your Blinds, to see how your strategy should change here.