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Tournament strategy, building your stack and taking control

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Wednesday November, 25th 2009 by fullhouse

Tournament poker strategy means taking everything slow and steady, but at some point you will need to take action and start building your stack. If you sit back and wait for too long your chips will dwindle away. Aggression at the tables needs to be well placed, however, or else you will end up burning your stack. There is no blind level where you will automatically shift gears; it is more of a steady progression. The early stages of a tournament are about pure survival and a bit of growth, the middle stages are about pure growth, and the final stages are about knocking other players out. The key to building up a stack is taking one small pot at a time until you build up one big stack. This can be achieved by stealing the blinds, smart and aggressive post flop play, or by simply taking down some large pots. One of the biggest mistakes any tournament player can make is to get over anxious. Never overextend yourself unnecessarily; you will not get huge hands every hand, all you can do is wait for opportunities. Capitalizing on your big hands will allow you to erase the losses you inevitably incurred from your weaker hands. Slow and steady wouldn’t work all that well in cash games, or even in the majority of SNGs, but in tournaments it is the way to go.

Turning up the aggression

While there is no magical point in a tourney where you should turn up your aggression, it should become obvious when your stack is in need of some growth. AQ might have been a fold to a 3 bet earlier in a tournament, but as you get to the middle stages it will become important that you make a 4 bet. Calculated risks need to be taken when playing a tournament; a scared player will often end up on the sidelines before they make the money. There is a distinct difference between aggressive play and reckless play, however. You should never start playing aggressively in a tournament because you feel like you have to. An easy way to judge your progress against the other players is to look at the average stack sizes. If your stack pales in comparison to the leaders there is a good chance that it is time to start taking some action. If your stack is right around or above the average, however, it is perfectly fine to wait around a bit for hands. The only way you will win a tournament is if you outlast all of the other players, the only way to outlast all of the other players is to hang around. The problem that players will run into is this mentality of “I need to hang around” with a disregard for any growth. The combination of survival and aggressive mindsets will ultimately create a successful tournament player. Always remember that another hand is just around the corner, but also keep in mind that your next hand shouldn’t be your last. Play tight but maintain an aggressive approach and you will be on your way to the final table.