Tournament Strategy for Real Money Poker Players
Real money poker tournaments offer players the chance to win big prizes with a small initial investment. In the biggest real money tournaments, like the World Series of Poker, the first prize winners can take home millions of dollars!
However, you can’t use the same strategies you use for cash games in poker tournaments. Here are a few tips on how to adjust your game when you play in a real money poker tournament.
• The biggest difference between cash game poker and tournament poker is that losing your stack knocks you out of the tournament. In a cash game, losing doesn’t hurt you (provided you’re properly bankrolled); you can just reload and continue playing. In a poker tournament, however, once you’re out, you’re out. That means that simple survival has value.
• This also means that not every chip has equal value. Obviously, your first chip is worth a lot, since it keeps you in the tournament. But as you start to accumulate chips, doubling your chip stack probably won’t quite double the amount of money you expect to win in the tournament on average. This means that it can sometimes be right to avoid high variance plays even when the odds suggest that in a cash game, you’d be correct to take the gamble. However, keep in mind that this only applies to good players, who expect to have a better chance to gain those chips later. It also only applies to very close gambles; if you’re a 60/40 favorite to double up, you simply can’t turn down that opportunity, no matter who you are.
• Another major factor that takes on much more importance in real money tournaments is stack size. When we talk about stack size, the size of your stack relative to other players can be important, but the bigger issue is how large your stack is compared to the blinds and antes. In a poker tournament, the blinds and antes are constantly getting larger; as this happens, unless you’re accumulating chips, your stack starts to get shorter even if your number of chips stays roughly the same. One way of stating the size of your stack is by figuring out how many rounds of blinds and antes you can afford to pay. For instance, if the blinds are 500/1,000, and the ante is 50, your cost per round is 2,000 chips (1,500 for the blinds, and another 500 for the antes). If you have 20,000 chips, you can play for ten rounds before you’ll blind off all your chips. Dan Harrington calls the number of rotations you can play your “M” – in this case, your M would be 10.
• When you have a large M – say, 20 or more – you can play any strategy you like, from aggressive to conservative, taking into account what makes you comfortable and your opponents. But as your stack gets shorter, your options dwindle; by the time your M is five or less, you can’t be picky; your only good play is to move all-in as soon as a good opportunity presents itself.
• One of the most critical parts of a real money poker tournament occurs when only a few more eliminations will get the remaining players into the money. This is known as “the bubble.” If you have a large stack during this period, it’s a great idea to get very aggressive when dealing with medium and short stacks! These players will generally be very worried about being eliminated just before the money, and will back down to aggression unless they have a huge hand, since simply folding will ensure they win something once the bubble bursts. Very short stacks – the few that are most likely to be eliminated just before the money – should also be looking for spots to push their chips in rather than sitting on their stacks and hoping for a miracle.
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