Head Games

The Pros: Dan Kelly, Bryan Paris, and Stephen Chidwick

Craig Tapscott: What kind of information should a player look for during the first few levels when you sit down at a table for a live tournament?

Dan Kelly: When you first sit down at the table you should look around at everyone and try to get an idea of what kind of players they are. First impressions can be misleading, but often you can gather some information based on a player’s appearance and demeanor. Most importantly, you should pay attention to the action of every hand, even if you are not involved. Since you see so few hands live, it is crucial to take advantage of all available information. It is tempting to zone out and play games on your phone or iPad when not in a hand, but forcing yourself to stay focused will help pass the time. Paying attention to the other players’ tendencies will allow you to make more informed and profitable decisions throughout the day.
  
Bryan Paris: The most important thing to do when any live tournament starts is to see who the obvious fish at the table are. The very beginning of a tournament is when you’re going to have the highest proportion of weak players, and maximally exploiting them is an important skill to develop. Pay special attention to the weakest players at the table so you can take advantage of these early opportunities, and try to avoid confronting the better players until later in the tournament. Another related thing to pay attention to is live tells. You shouldn’t be playing that many hands early, but make sure you observe all the hands that go to showdown, and the other players’ mannerisms during those hands. There is a huge amount of information to be acquired and processed right off the bat that is vital for making the best decisions you can later. Finally, try to keep track of how frequently the other players are playing hands, to get a rough idea of the percentage of the time that they’ll be involved in pots from each position. All of this information can help you make moves later or make the right reads on your opponents in critical spots.

Stephen Chidwick: Many players like to register late for tournaments and get an extra hour or two of sleep as they see this period as a waste of time and effort with the blinds and therefore pots being so small comparatively to the rest of the tournament. However if you are alert and paying attention to your opponents, a read you pick up on hand one could save you from making a tournament ending mistake late in the day when every pot is so important. You want to start developing your reads as soon as you sit down at the table, even before the first card is dealt.

Everything from someone’s appearance and the way they talk about poker at the table to how they handle their chips and what they do in their first few hands should help you start to build a comprehensive idea of how that person approaches the game and how they are likely to play in different scenarios. Not sure I could give a top three list of things to scout but a few good ones to be aware of would be; bet sizing — a player who open raises to five times the big blind from the cutoff is significantly more likely to be a recreational and less experienced player. A player who 2.5 times it, or minraises from level one and sizes most of his bets postflop in the same 50-75 percent of pot range will much more often be an online tournament player. Appearance — the obvious stereotypes around gender or age can hold true for a majority, but they certainly don’t tell the whole picture and can be deceiving. Don’t expect a 65-year-old with a gold watch and yachting hat who frequently misses hands to answer phone calls to play the same way as a gentleman of the same age who is playing his first event at the WSOP because his grandchildren bought him into it for his birthday. And whatever you do, don’t mistake Vanessa Selbst for an easy target at the table. Showdown hands are the most important of the three; always pay attention to how your opponents are playing, regardless of whether you are involved in the hand or not. If the hand gets to showdown you will get the opportunity to go back over everything they did during the hand and decipher what they were trying to achieve with each action.

Craig Tapscott: Can you share a few of the biggest mistakes you see during the early levels? What’s your style of play, your goals, during this time?

Dan Kelly: Aside from playing good poker, you shouldn’t go in to a tournament with a fixed strategy. Depending on the toughness of the table and which players are to your right or left, the optimal strategy can vary from playing snug to playing very loose and aggressive. In general you should be trying to play as many pots as possible with the weaker players at the table, especially in position. Conversely, you should try to avoid playing large pots versus the stronger players at the table, especially out of position.

For example, if someone is limping a lot of hands and playing weakly postflop, then you should be isolating him or her with a wide range of hands. Over-limping can be a viable option sometimes, but, in general, with any hand you are going to play, raising and getting the pot heads-up in position versus a weak range will be more profitable.  

Bryan Paris: The biggest mistake I see people make early is to try and win the tournament in the first few levels. So many players, especially those who learned playing online, aren’t used to the glacial pace of live play; they try to force the action a lot earlier than they need to. It’s vital to keep the big picture in mind early, and use the first few levels to establish an image and gather information on the rest of the table. There definitely will be good spots to get involved in pots early on against the weaker players at your table, but there’s no need to get too fancy. I try to treat the early levels like a deep-stacked cash game, looking to get involved in situations that will put me in profitable spots on the turn and river, preferably in position against weak players. The early levels are much more about inducing postflop mistakes than preflop ones.

Stephen Chidwick: My goal is to have a versatile and dynamic style of play that optimally exploits the specific player tendencies of each of my opponents. I don’t think I am close at all to achieving this but it’s what I try to work towards. I don’t go into a tournament with a prepared notion of how I will approach it. The biggest mistakes I see during the early stages of live tournaments by amateur players are an overvaluing of top-pair type hands and not being able to get away from them in big pots. I also think that most people don’t pay enough attention to correct bet sizing given opponent tendencies and effective stack depth. I see many people who have rigid ideas about what they think they should be betting for balance in certain spots, but you are leaving money on the table if you don’t try to exploit your opponents fully and not be focused entirely on being unreadable yourself. Against a really loose player who never folds to three-bets preflop, it is perfectly fine to reraise really big when you have a strong hand that you want to get value from. ♠

Dan Kelly has cashed for over $7,500,000 in live and online tournaments. In 2010 he won the WSOP $25,000 no-limit event for $1,300,000. In 2009 Kelly won the player of year during the PokerStars World Championships.

Bryan Paris has been a fixture at the online MTT scene since 2005. He has logged tens of thousands of online MTTs cashing for more than $4,100,000 along the way. Paris cashed in the 2012 WSOP Main Event.

Stephen Chidwick cashed five times at the 2012 WSOP including a sixth place finish in the $50K Players Championship Event. As “stevie444” he has online cashes for over $3,200,000.