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Early Stages Tournament Strategy

April 20, 2009

The early stages of a poker tournament are the most important for setting yourself up for a deep run. During the early stages you need to survive and start accumulating chips, or you’ll leave yourself in rough shape one the blinds and antes start increasing. This article is going to discuss the early stages of multi table tournaments, and recommend the correct playing strategy for various situations in the early goings of the tournament.

Survival is Key

The most important thing to remember is that you must survive the early stages to have any chance at a deep run. What this means is that you need to pick your spots carefully to both accumulate chips as well as minimize your risk of elimination. We’ll go over a few examples to show what we mean here:

Imagine you’re in a $20+$2 tournament at the Aced Poker room. You’re dealt pocket Tens in late position, and raise it up after the table folds to you. A player in the big blind makes a huge re-raise, and you’re basically forced to choose between folding and going all in. Even though there’s a good chance you’re ahead in the hand, there’s only a small chance that you’re dominating the other player. During the early stages you should avoid all coinflip scenarios because you can easily find yourself on the rail even if you played the hand properly.

My personal theory is that if you’re going to get all your chips in the middle, you should believe that you have at least a 75% chance of winning the hand. Since the blinds are so low and antes aren’t even in effect, there’s no reason to take a risk in the early stages, even if you believe you’re a 60% favorite to win the hand. You’ll find better spots elsewhere in the tournament.

Chipping Up

You certainly remember that I also mentioned chip accumulation as being an important part of the early stages. Even though you shouldn’t be taking huge risks, you still should be attempting to accumulate chips slowly and consistently. My favorite way to do this is to wait for solid preflop hands, raise it up, and then make continuation bets on the flop. You’ll be able to pick up a bunch of small pots uncontested, and even if the pot gets big you still have a solid hand that may have hit the flop.

Rebuy Strategy

One time that this strategy isn’t correct for the early stages is when you’re playing a rebuy tournament. During the first hour of a rebuy tournament you need to play very aggressively so you can keep up with the field. In a rebuy tournament, I recommend waiting for solid hands and getting all in preflop. Since the majority of pots will be all in before the turn, just wait for a good hand, get your chips in, and hope for the best. If you win the pot you’ll have a nice stack and can slow down, and if you lose the pot you can always rebuy and try again.

Written by admin · Filed Under Tournament Strategy 

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