Early Tournament Strategies

July 31, 2008

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Early Tournament Strategies

Allen Cunningham

July 30th, 2008

Many players’ first exposure to poker comes from watching WSOP and WPT tournaments on TV, and I think that’s great. It’s entertaining and you’ll see some interesting plays, but viewers have to understand that they shouldn’t model their games based on the action they see on TV.
Why? The answer is simple - what you’re seeing is unrealistic and edited for television. Players in these televised tournaments often start with very deep stacks (sometimes 10,000 chips or more) and, most of the time, all you’ll see on the broadcast is action from the final table where the blinds are high and play is fast. In contrast, the majority of the low buy-in ($1 to $20) tournaments you’ll encounter online usually start with stacks of 1,500 and blinds of 10/20.
Because your approach to the early stages of these tournaments is key to whether you’ll make the final table, the question is, what should your strategy be?
I suggest adopting a simple approach, especially if you’re not a very experienced tournament player. Try not to play too many hands and aim to see a few cheap flops with small/medium pairs if possible because these can provide some the best chances for you to double or even triple up during the first couple of levels. There are many times when you may be able to put in 5% of your stack or less to see a flop and try and hit your set. You’re 7-to-1 to flop a set, but you may be getting 20-to-1 implied odds early on since a flopped set will often be the best hand, and you’ll have a good chance to double up against weaker players who may overplay top pair.
If you are expecting a few callers, you might want to limp with these hands pre-flop. You may also just want to flat call with these hands if there are already a couple of people in for a small raise when the action gets to you. But, if the action is folded to you in late position, you definitely want to raise and take down the blinds. If you want to play conservatively, you can safely throw away small pairs in early position. As I said previously, you don’t want to commit more than about 5% of your stack pre-flop with small and medium pairs (maybe 6% or 7% max), and when you play from early position there’s no guarantee that’s going to happen.
Of course you also want to be playing your monsters like AA and KK, and other hands like QQ, JJ, AK and AQ. Remember early on when stacks are deep, you’re not going to get a lot of action for all of your chips unless you’re up against a pretty strong hand.
There are no concrete rules as to how fast you should try to build your stack in the early going, but the main thing you don’t want to do is go broke by playing too loose. In smaller online tourneys you will either be in the money or close to the money without having to win too many pots if you can just play tight and hang around for a couple of hours. If you speculate too much or take too many coin-flips when you don’t need to early on, chances are that you’ll end up on the rail and miss that opportunity.
Even if you make it to the fourth or fifth level with just a little above starting stack, you’ll usually be in good enough shape to take a run at the money. Remember, getting into the money and beyond is what counts - so learn how to start your tournaments the right way and give yourself the best chance to be the last player standing at the end.
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It all begins on Wednesday, August 6th, at 21:00 ET with Event #1, a $1 million guaranteed No-Limit Hold ‘em tournament. You can buy in directly to any of our FTOPS events or satellite your way in for as little as $1 or just 50 Full Tilt Points.
See the FTOPS IX Schedule to find your favorite events, and be sure to check out our video highlights of select final tables to see how the action played out.
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Sit & Go Madness

Sit & Go Madness returns this weekend! Play in your favorite Sit & Gos from 16:00 ET (21:00 GMT) on Friday, August 1st to 16:00 ET (21:00 GMT) on Sunday, August 3rd and you could take home your share of more than $75K in cash and prizes. Look for the SNGs in green in the game lobby to get in on the action.
The 48 hours of Sit & Go Madness is divided into 24, two-hour blocks (e.g., 16:00 ET to 18:00 ET, 18:00 ET to 20:00 ET, and so forth) throughout the weekend. There will be a Leaderboard for each of the four groups ($1 to $2 SNGs, $5 to $11 SNGs, $20 to $33 SNGs, and $50 to $110 SNGs) during every time period, with the top seven players in each group getting paid at the end of every two-hour block.
There’ll also be an Overall Leaderboard for the entire weekend, with the top two finishers from each group winning a seat in a $5K Sit & Go Freeroll.
If that’s not enough, for every Sit & Go that you win during the weekend, you’ll get one ticket for the Madness Raffle. We’ll be giving away tournament entries to FTOPS IX and some great gear from the Full Tilt Store. Let the madness begin all over again!

Written by Dirty · Filed Under Poker 

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