Texas Holdem Poker

If you are a poker tournament player you already no this, but there no perfect way to play a poker tournament. Whether you play online poker, in a casino or just in home games, you can’t win them all. To help improve your tournament game there is a few basic things you can do.

First and foremost you need to know that you can’t win them all, consistency is the key to becoming a successful Holdem tournament player. For example if you play $10 tournaments online where the winner takes home $60, winning one of six should be your minimum expectation. Style doesn’t necessarily matter, but it is easier to find consistency if you are a tighter player. You need to know yourself as a player in order to find a way to be a winner over the long run, so the first step is always to look in ward and know your own strengths and weaknesses. I am going to go over a few steps that will help you become a better tournament player, and not necessarily game strategies.

Picking Your Tournaments

I can never say this enough “Know Your Limits”, if you can’t afford the tournament, don’t play in it. As I stated earlier you can’t win them all, so if you can only afford to play one you might be throwing your money away. Picking your tournaments is made easier if you are an online player, depending on what software you use, your probably going to have a lot of options. There are few questions you need answered before you sign yourself up, What is the buy in?, What is the blind structure?, What is the payout structure and How long will the tournament last approx. ?. This is where is becomes important to know yourself, picking the right poker tournaments is the first step to becoming successful, here are some guidelines. For tight players, you will look for long blinds giving you time to set up your game and you might want a payout structure that pays out more places then a bulk to the winner. For the more aggressive player a faster blind structure will be fine with you, the higher the blinds the bigger your advantage will be over the tighter players. As for the time the tournament last, it’s a pure time to money ratio thing. Why would anyone play a $1 tournament that is going to last 4 plus hours for the chance to win 10 dollars, the only reason is to waste time.

Getting Started

Now that you picked your game and have been assigned a seat, its time to play. For me personally I like to get to know my opponents over the first few hands or blind levels, learning there tendencies and hopefully picking up some tells. Other people will tell you to get in the action immediately, by doing this you will let the table know that you are there to win. Of course none of this matters if you pick up pocket aces on this first hand, the more tournaments you play the more comfortable you will become during the start. Early in tournaments its important to realize that it is long game and to put your chip stack at risk with a big bluff or marginal hand might not be the wisest decision. As an example you pick up pocket aces on the third hand of a tournament, the cards come out Jd – !0d – 9d – 8c – and 2d, there are flushes and straights out there and you have neither. If your opponent puts you to the test, this might be a good time to lay down those aces. Basically early in tournaments, be patient, pay attention and let the game develop.

Be Yourself at the Table

Once again back to knowing yourself, if you’re a talkative person then go ahead and talk, if your are quite then be quite. The minute you change who you are obvious tells will show up in your game, and yes no matter what you think, you have tells. To avoid giving off obvious tells, be who you are, if you don’t talk when you are playing hands, then for your sake don’t start talking when you are bluffing. It sounds simple, but you will be surprised by the amount of players who make these very simple mental errors. Some rules to follow, Never let someone get you off your game, Always be consistent with your demeanor, relax and have fun at the table. You cannot avoid tells, but by being your self and being consistent at the table at least you will make your opponents work to find out what they are.

Texas Holdem Poker Tournament is an art form, not a math question, there is no perfect solution. If you follow some of these basic steps you will become more successful and have more fun at the tables, because we all know winning is more fun then losing. I will never be able to stress this enough, You Can’t Win Them All, so its very important to know your spending limits. The best Holdem players in world are what they are because they have played a lot and learned a lot of these lessons along the way. Putting strategy aside, if you follow this basic knowledge and you will see a positive impact in your results, if you don’t you might want to consider changing the way you play. Holdem tournaments are fun and exciting and I hope you enjoy every minute at the tables.