Winning Poker Tournaments

In my last column, I recommended Dan Harrington’s encyclopedic book on winning in online cash games. In this column, I want to recommend a completely different type of book, Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time, by Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet, and Jon “Pearljammer” Turner. While Dan’s book dealt with global concepts for winning in cash games, this one details a series of very specific hands played by each of the author’s en route to winning an online tournament.

Whenever someone asks a poker question, the most accurate answer is often, “It depends.” And that is not an answer that one wants to hear, since it really isn’t too enlightening. This book reveals a set of specific hands played in specific situations by experts. It gives you insight into what decisions they made and what they depended on. As you read these hands, you can observe exactly what each player was thinking. It really puts you inside the mind of the expert.

To give you the flavor of the book, I am going to discuss one hand from Pearljammer’s section. I have played enough live tournaments against him to know that he is a
careful-thinking player who is not afraid to apply pressure or make moves when the situation calls for it. The reason that I have chosen this specific hand is that it is the type of hand that’s so unspectacular that it would probably pass unnoticed if it were not for this book. Yet, one of the most important elements of winning play is to handle seemingly trivial situations with care.

In Hand 32, four players are left at the final table. The blinds are 4,000-8,000 with a 1,000 ante. You are the chip leader with nearly 600,000, and are in the small blind with the 10♦ 8♦. The first two players, who have 223,000 and 341,000, fold. The big blind has 218,000. My own feeling is that 10-8 suited is only slightly better than average, so it certainly couldn’t be very wrong to fold out of position. On the other hand, as the chip leader with only one opponent left in the hand, a moderate semibluff raise to, say, 22,000 puts a lot of pressure on him and will often win you the pot. If someone asked me what the right play was, I’d have to say, “It depends.”
Turner’s thinking is as follows: “Although raising in this spot would be reasonable, especially with the chip lead, I generally prefer to keep blind-versus-blind pots small when I am out of position. I would rather play the hand post-flop, looking to extract maximum value if I hit, or pick up the pot cheaply if I miss and my opponent shows weakness. Also, by limping in, if my opponent raises small, I can call with hands like this that play well post-flop, whereas if I were to raise and he reraised, I would have to invest too much to make the call.” This is an incredibly detailed explanation of expert thinking in this specific spot. Whether or not you agree with his decision, you have to appreciate all of the thought that goes into his explanation of what “it depended” on.

He limps in (notice that this was the one play I didn’t really consider), and his opponent checks. He misses the flop, and checks. But even this humble check is accompanied by a description of the texture of this flop that causes him to check, and why, with other missed flops, he would lead out. Since I think you should get the book, I won’t reveal what types of flops would lead him to check and what types would lead to a bet. His opponent also checks. Another blank comes on fourth street, and he steals this tiny pot. As I said above, it is an extremely ordinary hand, and yet, his thinking preflop and on the flop is very deep.

If you are at least an intermediate-level player, especially one who plays online tournaments, you definitely should read this book. A lot of the ways that its authors think about hands translate well to live tournaments or even non-tournament situations. It is extremely instructive to see the depth of thinking that goes into making a decision. I also want to add that one of the things you notice when reading a book like this or like Gus Hansen’s Every Hand Revealed is, winning a tournament takes not only good play, but some good luck or at least the avoidance of bad luck in key situations. ♠

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. He usually spends much of the fall hanging out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s and The Library near Houston, and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.