Tournament Poker for Beginners: Make The Money or Make the Rail!

There are many ways to play tournament poker, but there is one thing that remains a fact no matter how you play. The person who is last standing is the ultimate winner. This doesn't mean that to cash isn't something to take as a win, but it's certainly not first. In any last man standing battle, survival is key to being the last one. This idealogy is very important in tourament poker play. In order to survive a game of odds, the best strategy is to take the roads with the best possible odds. This doesn't mean you shouldn't bluff some, but bluffing is something that isn't necessary in order to win. In No Limit Holdem there are a few things that anyone can do to make sure they are getting their best odds to succeed in any tournament.

One of the most important things to remember when trying to survive a tournament is that chips are the most important thing you have, so do not waste them. Stick to playing lower pots with more premium hands. The only time its really a good idea to play suited connectors is a situation where its cheap to see the flop and there are three or four people in the hand. The rest of the time you should direct your play at isolating one or two other people in the hand against you with the top of the top starting hands. Unless you've got Ace King to pocket Queens, you should be very cautious in the hand before and after the flop. Try to avoid racing situations and pick up the places you know you have the better odds. Racing and bluffing are actions one should take more often after cashing and with a bigger chip stack so the race itself is for your opponents tournament life and not yours. One can actually win an entire tournament without bluffing, but when you know your opponents are weak and it doesn't hurt u to take a stab, do it. Collecting more blinds in order to stay in longer can be very important.

Too many beginners believe, I gotta get lucky to win. This makes them think they are okay to play rather loose to try to "get lucky" and have a big chip stack. Its been seen over and over again, the biggest chip stack with 100 people is not the winner. The winner is the person who takes all the chips in the end. That doesn't mean that a big stack doesn't help your chances. But if you've got them by getting lucky, the chances are the odds will catch up to you and you will be crippled at some point playing with the worst hand and odds. Poker is a strategical game. People play against each other and try to outplay another person rather than a machine or the house. This is the beauty of poker.

Once again, tournament poker is a game of survival. So using math, you can calculate just how desperate you are in situations. Start thinking of your chips in terms of big blinds. How many big blinds you have is a easy determination of how desperate you are at any given time. Having less than ten big blinds is a clear sign that you need to do something, or your game of survival is about to come to an abrupt halt. When you have over twenty big blinds you should be calm and let the tournament play out as it should, until you get the nuts. Even after cashing in a tournament, playing slow can end up making you much more money if you have enough chips.

This is really just the beginning of playing tournament poker, there's reading players, table image, knowing the math, and a lot more for each to learn as they gain more and more experience. The most important thing is to continue to have fun and learn from your mistakes. There aren't many great players that can say they don't make mistakes. Those great players will all tell you, the mistakes they made only made them a stronger player. The worst players all make the same ones over and over again. Survive and minimize your risk in order to win a tournament, unless it's a turbo and then there's a whole new set of rules.