Tips for first time on-line tourney poker player.

So tomorrow night I’m booked in for the JPPA (Japan Poker Players Association) annual tournament. It’s a free, on-line tournament but the winner gets to move on to a live tournament in Tokyo, and the winner of that gets a free ride to the World Series.

I play on-line poker quite a bit, but only free games, and I’ve never played a tournament before. So, I know the game, and I know the odds, but I have no experience in a tournament so I’m wondering if anyone has some useful tips or strategies for how to play. Also, I know that free games are not like real poker (I play a live game with friends each week), and the all-in every hand before the flop kiddies won’t be so prevalent in this tourney (I hope!). Thanks in advance.

I’m not an experienced player, but I have played a few cash tournaments (and read Gus Hansen’s excellent ‘Every hand revealed’).

Yes, free games mean you can be crazy with your chips, because it costs you nothing and you just start another game.
Here, although entry is free, there is no alternative once you’re eliminated. So I assume there will be a huge entry, but with less ‘all-in’ than usual.

Have a look at the blinds. How many hands can you play before you run out of money? (The more hands, the safer you can play.)

I would be prepared to pass most of my starting hands. Play only the known favourites (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, 1010, AQ, AJ, A10 etc). You should be able to stay in after the rush of beginners going crazy subsides.

If you get lucky and are a chip leader, you can bully the table by raising on e.g. suited connectors. Experienced players will be wary of tangling with a bigger stack, because you could eliminate them.

If you get unlucky and the blinds are killing you, you’ll have to pick a reasonable hand and go all-in.

Remember that this is an aggressive game, so if you’re thinking of limping in, consider raising instead!

Good luck!

Thanks glee for your advice. I’ll try to avoid the crossfire early on by playing safe hands only, as you suggest. Yes, it’s Texas Hold’em, I should have said that at the start, sorry. So far there’s only 150 or so people who have registered for tomorrow’s game (Poker not being so popular in Japan, I guess) but that may change overnight.

Blinds are 5/10 but that means nothing to me right now because I don’t know what each player is given to start with. I looked all over the website but couldn’t find anything. Is there a standard amount?

Also, the rules say that there is a “change every 10 minutes”. I’m not sure what that means, any help there?

Probably just means that the blinds increase. The tournament could go on forever otherwise, especially since as some players get knocked out, those that remain will, on average, have more chips than they started with.

With blinds starting at 5/10 and increasing every 10 minutes, you’ll probably start with 1,000-2,000 in chips. In the early going, don’t risk a lot of chips with marginal hands: see some flops cheaply with speculative hands (pocket pairs, suited connectors in position), and of course play your premium hands aggressively, but be prepared to get away from Top-Pair-Medium-Kicker type hands.

Pay close attention to your opponents. Early on, there will be some who are relatively cautious and reasonable, but, it being a free tournament, there will also be many who are playing extremely loose. Take note of which players are seeing a majority of the flops and/or showing down very weak hands, as you’re going to play very differently against them (specifically, you *can *go all the way with top pair type hands against them). It’s important to identify them early, because few of them will last for very long and they represent your best opportunity to get a big stack.

Since there’s no prize for anything other than 1st place, you should try to increase your variance. You have to give yourself opportunities to win a lot of chips, even when doing so means that losing a lot of chips is also possible, and losing *some *chips is very likely. Obviously you have to use your judgment as this advice can be taken too far, but remember that you have to win *all *of the chips, which can’t be done if you keep getting run over by blinds which represent a big chunk of your stack.

The odds of your winning two consecutive multi-table tournaments are minuscule no matter what you do, so your primary objective should be to have fun.

After reading Gus Hansen’s Every Hand Revealed I played in back-to-back 3,600 player freeroll tournaments on Full Tilt, finishing 23rd and 2nd respectively.

I did a lot of late position raising, and continuation betting. Conservative players (in large tournaments) are at the mercy of the quality of their hole cards. Aggressive players tend to win these things.

Thus, don’t be afraid to re-raise a late position raiser.

Certainly take glee’s advice and just watch out for an early all-in fest (which tends to happen in freerolls). Once the all-in junkies are either knocked out or at the top of the chip leaderboard, the game should stabilise and the real poker will begin.

To summarise: Err on the side of aggression, but if you believe you most probably beaten, have the discipline to fold the hand. Don’t be seduced by your pocket Queens when the flop comes A, K, 7.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips all! I’m a very conservative player usually, so I think I’m going to have to work on a more aggressive approach.

Tip #1: Don’t play the first hand without AA or KK. A free online tournament, you’re going to have 5,000 people sign up, and probably 1,000 of them out in the first 3-4 hands. Probably 1/2 in the first hour if it’s anything like when I used to play.

Tip #2: Be really, really, really, really, really lucky. It’s a freeroll.

No, no, no! Be conservative. Just remember that in order to win any large tournament you will have to suck out at least once. It’s simply not possible to win without a little bit of luck.

Occasional aggression isn’t a bad thing; however, if you’re not the type of player who likes to control the action, you won’t learn to play as one overnight.

One of the big (and often overlooked) keys to tournament play is knowing where the profit is: before the bubbles. If this is really a winner-take-all tournament as you say, that’s not important. However, in a regular structured game where the top, say, 20% get paid out, everyone gets super-cautious on the bubble. Nobody wants to be the last guy that doesn’t cash. So, you can buy a ton of hands when you’re approaching the bubble. If you’re a naturally conservative player, you will also have built a table image that lends itself to this strategy. In televised tournaments, there can be several bubbles; one will be when “TV time” starts- ie., the point where they start rolling tape for the TV broadcast. Everyone wants to get on TV. The next one will be the cash bubble, and there may be several more depending on the prize structure.

Thanks guys/gals for all the advice.

I made a few mistakes and sucked out early in the first 30 mins. :stuck_out_tongue: I had three chances where I had suited high cards and the flop came with two more of the same suit. The river or the turn could have saved me with a flush but never did. Those three big bets were enough to see me on my way out of the game.

It was fun though, and I’ll try again.

Yes, do. When I started a year ago, it was “just for fun” and now I make quite some money, and still have fun.

My advise:

  1. Play for cash – otherwise it’s not Poker.

  2. Learn the theory. Pot Odds and other applications of probability should be ingrained in you; read about strategy and player types and start to identify who does what and why at tables that you observe without playing.

  3. Decide what type of poker you want to play; most people start with Texas Holdem and that’s not a bad idea but even then you have to consider what’s best for you: fixed limit, pot limit or no limit at all. I started with fixed to improve my mathematical perspective but some people are too bored by fixed.

  4. Develop a strategy that improves your play step by step. There were/are times, e.g., when I play(ed) hands without looking at my hole cards at all.

  5. Play Cash Game and/or SitnGos to develop a bankroll. Level up when the bankroll allows it and not when you want to. Level down when you have lost too much of your money to hold your current level.

  6. Analyze your plays afterwards, look out for mistakes, missed opportunities and what you did right (a software with a replay function is very helpful in this respect).

  7. (Learn to) accept losses. It doesn’t matter how good you play, you will loose money, occasionally. The important thing is that you win more, in the long run.

There are two reasons why you cannot possibly avoid loosing: a) the improbable happens; we all have lost with AA against 72 and with a house on the flop against quads on the turn, b) you can’t play just the stone nuts – if you do, no one will check or raise your bets, you have to loose a bit to win … more.

Which reminds me: some players think poker is about winning hands, many think it’s about winning the pot – bs, it’s about winning money. I know guys who win 7 of 10 pots but still loose money because they have trouble folding the 3 ones they have little chance to win, even when they are raised. Don’t do that! In the beginning, act 8 or better 9 times out of 10 according to probability – it needs a lot of experience to play the players and not the odds! Do that later!

  1. Learn to stay cool. There are brilliant players out there who are driven bonkers when they loose against probability for the fifth time in a row or who are taunted repeatedly by the guy who actually made his gut shot on the river after he went all-in on the flop against your set. Please, neither be the bonkers guy nor the taunter.

  2. Tournaments are far more luck oriented than cash game is. Especially the freerolls are filled with maniacs who will go all-in with every pocket pair and every ace. Of the last 30 tourneys I played I was eliminated 8 times with AA against such a maniac and 6 times against runner-runner. it will happen to you, accept it!

So, if you want to improve your game steadily, play cash game and add SitnGos to improve your tourney strategies.

  1. Cash game and tourneys are played differently. Learn to deal with both, experiment a bit, find out where your advantage is and make money.

  2. Because it needs repeating: develop a bankroll, act according to your bankroll, never let your ego dominate your bankroll.

If I might, I’d amend this to, “play for cash, practice for free, know the difference between the two.” For most players, what they’ll try/what hands they’ll play varies quite considerably between freerolls and real money games.

Good advice, also. I strongly advise that you not let pot odds rule your play, though; they’re only as useful as your read is accurate. If you calculate your odds based on the other guy having hit his pair, and he’s actually hit his flush, you’re going to lose lots of chips.

This is really, really good advice- you’ll learn all sorts of things by playing blind that you could really never learn any other way. The problem is that you have to play in a real life game to do it (unless you want to stick a post-it note over your monitor or something).

Corollary: don’t treat your bankroll like a buy in. Just because you can afford to move up, doesn’t mean you’re ready. Ideally, your bankroll should be 10 (or more) times the buy in for the level you’re playing.

Oh, yes. And it improves your game considerably when you identify the differences and learn to switch between the approaches deliberately.

Play the game the way you prefer to learn: switch between different experiences or concentrate on one game till you know the basics by heart.

But don’t try to emulate the more experimental and loose aggressive freeroll play at the cash table – it might work for some hands but soon enough the experienced players will start to raise you mercilessly and force you into difficult decisions.

You don’t want that, keep it as simple as possible at first.

I agree. Pot Odds, all the math involved, would be the perfect guide if only poker players weren’t such damn liars. :wink: However, they help you understand what the villain wants you to think what he holds in his hands. And they help you do the same.

Once you understand easily what they want you to think with the bet made, you will have a perfect starting point to identify all the hints that support or contradict this statement.

Also, the probabilities are more important in fixed limit when it’s difficult to get rid of other players early in the hand (because your bet limit is set) and therefore multiway hands are more commonly played and far more dangerous.

In pot or no limit the cards in your hand are far less important than your read of your opponents (and your ability to give a false impression in return).

True enough – of course, sometimes it’s quite useful to know the relationship between outs & odds.

Lets say you’ve hit the top pair (with a great kicker) or, better yet, hold a higher pocket pair than any card in the flop – but two cards on the board show a possible flush draw … well, then bet at least 2/3 of the pot, better yet, the pot.

If the villain has a draw and checks, he will be disappointed in around 64% of all these plays. Which means that you will make money in the long run against such players even if this hand is one of the other 36%. Because they bet more money than the odds give them in return (in the long run).

Some knowledge of outs and odds also helps you calculate the relative risk of speculative hands if you don’t know a thing about your opponent.

Lets compare two different hands:

  1. You have JJ in your pockets and the flop is 3Q7.

  2. You hold 97 and the flop is: AT8.

Both times 80$ are in the pot and the villain bets 20$ – what do you do if you don’t know anything at all about the other player?

Well, in (1) if the villain has the Q you need a J to win this, the probability that this happens is 8.4% (there are two J left, so the probability that you get one is 2/47 on the turn and 2/46 on the river).

Math tells you that you should fold the hand, so you should at least consider it.

But in (2) the chances for you to get a straight are around 18% and you have to pay less into the pot – so even if you think your opponent holds an ace, you should call his bet.

Of course, that’s the theory. In reality, what poker player would bet that low with top pair?

Everyone not totally stupid will always try to force you into a difficult decision and not a comfortable one – which is exactly what you should do in(1): Raise your opponent and let him think a bit.

More often than not, a raise or a fold is better than a check. You don’t learn anything at all with a check and encourage an aggressive stance against you.

Of course, a check has its merits: sometimes to hide your strength, sometimes to get a card for free, sometimes to bluff with a check-raise. But when you’re in doubt, a bet will give you information and the chance of a fold … which is nice.

Absolutely, you can’t stress that enough! You should have really mastered a level before you dip your toe into the next one – the water gets colder every time.

I’d suggest an even higher bankroll in no limit to give a relatively new player a wider margin when dealing with LAGs – who simply can’t be avoided: once everyone realizes that someone flinches away from aggressors with anything but the very best cards they will all fall on him and he will have a hard time to win at all.

Which brings me to one final advise (for now :D): make sure that the other players learn to respect your decisions!

Go to the showdown from time to time and show a hand that tells them you know what you’re doing.

Their respect improves every hand you play considerably and helps to fill your bankroll steadily.

So? How’d it go?

I gave a mini-report above. Basically I went out very quickly. Fate dealt me some nice hole cards where, after the flop, I was one card shy of Ace or King high flushes three times, and I bet on those hands after the flop and was kind of forced to call for about one third of my stack each time. I didn’t make one of the flushes and that’s all she wrote.

Guess you missed this, Hamlet:

Be aggressive, but don’t be like the guy I was playing moments ago.

Down to three players out of 165…he HAD the big stack by a long shot when were down to 8 players and has blown it trying to bully. (Raising with nothing EVERY hand, going all in on every other hand, etc.).

He busted out 6th when he a good shot of winning the thing. He had 2/3rd of the total chips and gave them all away.

It’s frustrating to play against, but like they say, “All-in works every time but one.” :smiley:

I’ve highlighted the problem in your approach (just my opinion, of course); speculative hands, like draws, usually shouldn’t be played when they cost you more than 10% of your stack – quite a lot of winning (cash) players wouldn’t play them beyond 5%.

A tourney is different, but 33% of your stack aren’t justified, especially when the blinds are still low compared to your stack which means that you have a lot more hands left (not) to play before the rising blinds force you to increase the risk.

Don’t mistake the proper betting amount with regard to the pot with your stack! 1/3 of your stack means that you’re pretty much committed early on and if it doesn’t work out you need luck soon.

Let me expand the earlier thought a bit: in a tourney, your absolute stack size compared to the blinds determines the risk you have to take with a hand. When your stack is reduced to 8 times the big blind, it’s time to go all-in preflop with any hole cards that look all right, because you absolutely need to double up and chances are, some one will call you. As long as your stack is 20 times the blinds, play solid and be careful to not let anyone “force” you into a stack-cutting pot with a speculative hand (btw, no one can force you to do that, it’s your decision, your responsibility, your loss).

The relative stack size between you and your opponent tells you how aggressive your hand should be played. When you have a stack twice the size of every other stack at your table you can play every decent hand as an all-in preflop.

But usually, preflop aggression is far more dangerous in a tourney than at a cash table. In a cash game, a hand that was started with a 3bb bet preflop is rarely played by more than two players. In a tourney, the whole table might get involved and start the raise-reraise game (even when it endangers all of their stacks) – which means that you have no room at all for a bluff early in the day. If you don’t struck gold on the flop, get out! And get out even sooner when the other guys play the escalation game. Never risk your stack in vain!