Chapter 3: Stages of a Tournament

Welcome to my third chapter. In this section of the blog I aim to discuss how to use the different stages of a tournament to play hands differently in an attempt to gain an advantage. The main difference between tournament poker and straight up cash poker is that the blinds increase over time in tournaments forcing the action to occur where as in cash poker blinds do not increase as there is no need to force action, one other key difference is the option to buy back in, in the event of busting out. (Yes, there are tournaments which allow rebuys but I am going to exclude them for now). At the start of the tournament the blinds are relatively small in comparison to stack sizes. A common misconception is that this gives you freedom to play more hands than you would normally. The fact that it's cheap to play should not greatly influence your decision to play a hand, as mentioned in early chapters I have found playing tight aggressive is definitely the best way to play. The best way to obtain your tight image is to simply fold almost all of your early hands. People will quickly(1or 2hours) label you as a rock. This is useful as later on in the tournament when the blinds are higher and you start to steal more you will be less likely to get looked up by marginal hands.

In the middle stages of the tournament the blinds are now larger than when we first started (approximately ten times larger)and there is often a running ante which requires additional chips to be put in every hand. we have developed our tight image but we don't want to go crazy and destroy our reputation by raising and reraising every hand. However we do want to increase the number played slightly I always aim to win 1 or 2 hands every orbit of the table at this point of the game. This means our hand range in what we play should be opened up more and the number of bluffs we try and run should be increased.

The late stages of the tournament are normally considered when there are only a few tables remaining. At this stage of the tournament you should have knocked a few people out of the tournament and your image of being tight may now be wayning a little bit but people will still have large question marks about you. You will also have mental notes stored on all the other players. You should look to make the pots larger when playing against the weaker players remaining and try and keep pots small against stronger players at this time. As the blinds at this stage are so large and the antes are similarly crippling often when you get involved in a hand you should be prepared to go all of the way or fold as you cannot be playing and raising hands then folding too often this is a sure way to "spew" off your stack. Another interesting point to this stage is what is known as the bubble dash. This is where you get players who are not used to winning money and cashing they see the finish line and lock up shop until they stumble over it. These are the players we should be targeting as resistance to raises will be minimal all they want is a min cash. For a big finish this is the time we need to come alive and really bully the weaker players raising them and reraising them when they try something.

The final stages of a tournament known as the end game is where 75% of the money is at. We have made the final table and a few people have already been knocked out. We can no longer use the fear of finishing without winning anything as an advantage as everybody left is already guaranteed something.The game is short handed as there isn't a full table of players so we should be playing more the most hands we have played throughout the tournament. People who have the smallest stacks at the table should be targeted raising their blinds almost everytime you can. A common occurrence in live tournaments when only a few players remain is to talk about a deal where the Prize pool is split fairly. ALWAYS hold your own in negotiations and fight your corner and if it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't. However if your up against 2 or 3 very good players removing the variance by not playing on and agreeing to a deal is acceptable. I often like to chop the pot if there are only 2 players left. That is the biggest pay jump and it can hurt a lot to come second in a tournament.

 As always thank you for reading.