Starting Hands & Behaviour

You might think that starting hand strategy in poker is all about getting big cards and winning with them, but that's only half the story. The other half of the story is avoiding getting yourself into situations where you call down with weak cards.

If you've played poker already, you'll probably nod your head in agreement when you hear this situation:

You're in the Big Blind and you catch top pair on the flop with a weak kicker. A player bets, and you call the flop with your top pair. The player bets both the turn and river, and you call again (even when you really don't want to). When you turn your cards over, you find to your dismay that your opponent has a bigger kicker and wins the pot. You've just been out-kicked! This happens all the time and the key is to let it happen to your opponents - not you!

Remember: Position is extremely important. Sometimes even more important than the cards you are holding.

$16 NL 9 man Turbo SNG Win (May 20th 2009)

This is a Turbo SNG on Pokerstars where I play as Poker Invest.

$500 BONUS. Bonus code: DAVID500

Multi-table (MTT) strategy

Strategy

Multi-table (MTT) tournaments, as the name suggests, are tournaments played across multiple tables. The players have equal bankrolls. As players lose their chips, the number of active tables is reduced by gathering multi-table survivors into one table. This will be repeated many times until there’s only one table left where the person who wins all the chips brings home the tourney prize.

Objectives

When I first started to play multi-table, I was reckless. I had no strategy, no plan. I was over aggressive with sometimes marginal hands. Obviously I would bust out often.
After having studied the game, read many books and reviewed millions of hands, I have come to the conclusion that if you have no set strategy, you are better off just saving your money and not even bother playing poker.

I have 3 objectives in MTTs:

1) Make it to the money
2) Make it to the final table (FT)
3) Win!

Early in the game where a lot of unskilled people are playing, you must stick to your guns – but only with extremely good starting hands. For instance, in a no-limit Texas Hold'em MTT play the hand only if you have exceptionally playable starting hands. Do not wait to see too many flops early on. You’d just be depleting your bankroll much sooner in the tournament than you have to. Let your cards have a say on whether you’re playing or sitting out a hand. At this stage of the tournament, you are just trying to hold on to your chips. Furthermore, playing conservatively tells other tourney players that you only raise when you have extremely good cards and you fold when you know you’re beat. This reputation will come in handy later on.

In the middle stage of the tournament, when the number of players has been significantly depleted, it’s time to cash in on your tight-player reputation. You should start risking your chips, but not recklessly. At this stage, bluff for all you’re worth so you can increase your bankroll as rapidly as possible. However, be careful; you’re no longer playing with the ‘babes in the woods’ but with the ‘wolves’. Remember at this stage, you should try to win more chips YET retain your own chips.

If you manage to get to the final table with a reasonably high stack of chips, that’s very good. Now, your goal is to win the tournament. Put all the pressure on. Pick on short-stacked players so that they can be out of the game much sooner. At this stage of the game, you should show a very aggressive playing style. However, do temper your propensity for terror tactics when dealing with players who have as high or even higher stack than you do.