Early Tournament Strategy

In poker tournaments you will see that your play tends to evolve during the duration of the tournament. At some points you are much more aggressive and will steal many pots, and other times you will play very tight and very carefully. In the early stages of tournaments you are playing with very low blinds, so it is much cheaper to make steal attempts at the pot. The pot might not be as rewarding as they are later in the tournament, but it is a great way to build up a decent stack. By having a good tournament strategy in the early stages of a tournament you should be set up pretty well for the later stages where the blinds will be much larger.

1. Loosen Up – You want to take advantage of the players who are scared to lose and bust out of the tournament early. These players tend to value their long term survival in the tournament. This means when you are stealing these players are more likely to give up and pay off your steal. You will also take down a ton of chips in the blinds you will steal. A lot of players like to limp in since the blinds are so small in hopes of seeing a cheap flop. You need to punish these players for showing weakness. You need to attack these limpers with everything that you’ve got until they start fighting back. You have to be careful not to steal too often. This can lead to a bad table image where you will start to see a lot of your opponents fighting back against you with reraises.

2. Take Player Notes – You need to keep an eye out on the opponents that you are playing against early on in the game. For the most part you will not end up against too many of the players you were with early in the tournament, but when you are and you have a sick read on the player from watching them before it really pays off. You don’t have to attempt to hawk every player at the table, but make sure that you do take notes of everything you do notice.

3. Be Aggressive – You need to make sure that you are extremely aggressive when you are playing early in a tournament. Tournaments prove to have a lot of variance. You will be put up against players who are all in time and time again and you need to make sure that you pad your stack as much as you can because they will hit against you. You will normally take a good hit or two on your way to the final tables, but if you are aggressive and apply pressure to your opponents in the early game then you will be able to afford it without losing the tournament.

4. Don’t Bluff – Ok, make a lot of attempts to steal the blinds early in a poker tournament, but never pure bluff. In nearly every situation you are better off not bluffing and simply playing solid ABC poker. Most players are bad enough that you don’t need to get tricky with them. You simply need to let them make their own mistakes. Getting stuck in a bluff could certainly be the end of your tournament life before you know it so avoid pure bluffs completely.