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Tournament Strategies

Learn the advanced poker strategy tips and improve your poker tournament skills using our online poker strategy guide. Daily Poker Strategies gives you free online poker articles to become a solid poker tournament player. Read poker strategy!

Small Ball Poker

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Most good tournament players believe that the ideal strategy is only to play a big pot when having much the best of it. The strategy of keeping pots small until a player has the nuts, or close to it, is known as small ball. Small-ball tactics work best when blinds are small compared to stack size (if the cost of the blinds, or blinds plus antes, per round is less than 10% of the average player’s stack, it’s small-ball time). In the latter stages of a tournament when blinds and antes become a significant portion of players’ stacks, small ball becomes a less significant factor. While small ball is a general concept, it means different things to different types of players.

Old-school players employ small ball as a method of extracting chips through pot-size manipulation. They use opening bets and raises to narrow the possible range of hands their opponents could have. Then, based on those determinations, they proceed accordingly. Their goal is to build their stack gradually through repeated small bets at favorable odds. At the earliest limits, their main chance to get a big stack is through trapping an opponent in a big pot when they have the nuts. For the most part, however, they view the early limits of a tournament as something to get through with their bankrolls intact. Small ball is a means to increase their chances of survival.

Postflop Play in the Early Stages of Sitngos

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When you get to a flop the pot will either be heads-up or multiway, and either you will have the initiative from being the preflop raiser, someone rise will, or no-one will if it is a limped pot. You will also be in position or out of position (or perhaps somewhere in the middle in a multiway pot), which will be key in determining the extent to which you can control the hand.

Generally on the flop you should bet around 2/3 to 3/4 of the pot as a continuation bet when you are heads-up and have the initiative whether you make a hand or not, unless your opponent is very loose, the board is very draw heavy or you have flopped a monster and think trapping is the best play. When someone else has the initiative in a heads-up pot, you should generally check to them and then play accordingly. In multiway pots with the initiative, you should continuation bet far less with no hand, although betting dry flops like Kclubs-7spades-2hearts against two tight players is usually profitable.

On the turn and river you will need to reassess according to the cards that have come and how they affect your hand, the number of players remaining, the amount of chips left and your position. Thinking about the size of pot you wish to play is always key and for this reason position is crucial and you should think early in a hand about whether you are prepared to commit all your chips with it.

Multiple Rebuy Strategy in Poker Tournaments

Multiple rebuy tournament structures often make small buy-in tournaments extremely loose and aggressive during the rebuy period. This is especially true if the rebuy chips are sold at a discount from the initial buy-in chips, and even more true if players get more chips with a rebuy than they got for the initial buy-in. These types of multiple rebuy structures are common for small buy-in tournaments.

Wild betting during a rebuy period is also encouraged in some tournaments by policies that allow players who lose all of their chips during the rebuy period to make double rebuys. The crazy betting and all-ins that result add an immense luck factor to everyone's results during the rebuy period.

Essentially this type of tournament starts out as a lottery, with players buying chances at lucky hands. With enough players willing to both make and call all-in bets on draws or modest hands like top pair, there are simply going to be an inordinate number of big wins with mediocre cards and suck-outs. At the end of the rebuy period, after an hour of these constant all-in confrontations, there will be a few lucky players sitting there with massive chip stacks.

Multi-Table Sit'n Go Strategy

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There are certain players who are not contented with just a single table game and want something more. Multi table Sit'n Go games are for them. They promise much more fun and extreme excitement, plus loads of money, if you are armed with the right online poker strategy.

Size of the table.
The most popular size of multi table Sit'n Go is the 2-table one having 18-20 players. Next comes the 5-table Sit'n Go accommodating 45-50 players! Then there the 3-table and the 4-table ones too that are not so common among the players. No matter how many players are there at the table, the strategy is more or less the same.

Payouts.
The amount of payout offered varies with the sites. The following are some good grabs:

  • For 2-table, payouts are for top 3-4 places
  • For 3-table, payouts are for top 5 places
  • For 5-table, payouts are for top 7-8 places

At the beginning of the game.
The beginning of the game calls for a tight-aggressive style of playing. The first two levels harbor blinds that are too low, hence, you can fold everything, except premium hands. At this time, it's better to save your chips and refrain from bluffing.

However, there is something different here. Unlike the normal Sit'n Go games, if you get a chance to go all in the pre-flop early and you think you are ahead. Grab the chance. You would ask why. It is because this game is going to restrict the amount of hands you can see before are blinded away. In normal games, you could wait for later stage before you were compelled to go all in; however, here the scenario is quite different.

Postflop Basic Position Strategy

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There are two major postflop basic strategy position plays that cover the majority of the postflop situations in which you have position on your opponents. Here are the two secret strategies for making money after the flop:

1. He checks, you bet
2. He bets, you fold

That's it. If you've played in a few tournaments already, then you know this is no big secret. You see it all the time. But do you do it? You have to do it! In fact, about the only time you shouldn't bet when your opponent checks is when you've flopped such a monster hand that you want to give your opponent every possible chance to make something so that he'll be willing to put some money in the pot.
Let's dissect the logic of these two postflop strategies.

He Checks, You Bet.
He-checks-you-bet is just a standard basic online poker strategy play when you have position. Standard. Requires no thought. Just do it. As your skill level increases and you begin to get meaningful reads on your opponents, you will occasionally make an exception to this play but don't make a habit of violating this strategy.

If your opponent didn't bet, it is far more likely that he disliked the flop than that he is slowplaying you. About 90% of the time, the routine is: He checks. You bet. He folds. Forget about the 10% of the time when he is either slowplaying you, or likes his hand just enough to call, or has a strong draw and wants to see the next card even if he's not getting sufficient pot odds, or just thinks you're taking a position shot and is determined to be the sheriff. Unless you have some kind of an actual read on your opponent, ignore these possibilities. Follow the basic strategy.

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