The Art Of Tournament Poker

Tournaments are different than cash games. When I was first getting started, I didn’t understand anything about the fundamentals of tournaments and what made them different from cash games, I just knew that they were different.

In the last article we discussed the theory of the Independent Chip Model (ICM) and how it makes chips you win in tournaments worth less than the chips you already have and vice versa. ICM is the crux of tournament poker. In this column we’ll get into the stages of tournaments and how they differ from cash games.

Every hand in a cash game is an independent event. Other than the normal ebb and flow of emotions at a poker table and how they affect opponents, which is constant in any poker game, every cash game hand is irrelevant to every other cash game hand. In a tournament, every hand is intertwined with every other player in the tournament. Whenever somebody goes broke in a tournament, everybody remaining benefits, not just the breaker. This is all due to ICM. The interconnectivity of hands and tables in tournament poker is why rules like no talking about a hand, no collusion, no soft playing, etcetera, exist. It is important to not influence the hands to insure fair action for players not in the hand or at other tables.

The early stages of a tournament play much like a cash game. Stacks are deep, there are no antes, and therefore the math and feel of hands behave just like cash games. There is always the looming exception though, and that is that chips lost cannot be replenished, and if they can it comes at a cost (more rake through reentry). Also, chips won are worth less than chips already possessed, by the ICM fact that having a double starting stack on the second hand of the tournament does not double your equity in the tournament (your equity increases more like 1.8 times in these spots rather than two times).

In the early stages, optimal play is usually tight and aggressive. Shocker, right? The general theme early should be to play small ball. Keep the pots small until you want to make them big. Don’t punt your stack to the other team. As always, be aware of table dynamics and adjust accordingly. In Los Angeles, I generally sit on my hands until antes kick in, while in Las Vegas I may play nearly half my hands, and that is all dependent on how the opponents at my table react to my raises, continuation bets, and general tomfoolery.

It’s important to note that in live tournaments most players do this wrong (amongst other things). Players think that having a bunch of chips means that it’s okay to limp, to see a lot of flops, to gamble it up since they have a deep stack to gamble with. Instead, they end up putting themselves in awful spots with awful hands and blame going broke on just bad luck early in tournaments, and then complain about not having enough chips to start with.

Once the antes kick in you are officially in the the middle stages of a tournament. At this point, the incentive to enter pots increases greatly since the dead money in the pot available to win is significantly higher than a hand without antes. For example, with 100-200 blinds at a nine-handed table, there is 300 in the pot preflop without antes, but 525 with an ante of 25. This simple fact dramatically swings the odds to win needed to make entering the pot profitable. In the middle stages of tournaments, I’m doing everything in my power to win as many small pots as possible and slowly grow my stack without putting myself at risk of going broke.

It is important not to force the action in the middle stages. If you’re at a table with everybody who wants to force the action, you’re eventually going to be in a light three/four/five/six/seven betting war with a bunch of wizards when you should be playing tight and waiting for a better spot. Those who try to win small pots will win small pots, except when they can’t win small pots right now, and then they should give up trying to win small pots. Instead, adjust to the tight side and always have it since they clearly assume that you don’t have it.

The bubble is the first big town in the late stages of a tournament. I explored this spot a bit in the past column, and the gist is to not go broke while punishing those who don’t want to go broke at the same time. The deeper play progresses in a tournament, the greater the influence of stack sizes of everybody left in the field. If you earn more money by going broke after another guy on this hand, then you should be less willing to go broke on this hand. If somebody has peanuts, then you should really not go broke on this hand. If stacks are all equal, then you should just have your normal aversion to going broke, which should be slightly greater in a tournament than in a cash game. Remember, all the money is at the top of the pay table, but punting before letting that short stack bust is a greater offense than punting when things are equal.

Most players play the end game poorly. They hang on too tightly to survival and give up hope of taking home the big prize. The best tournament players win more often, but they strike out more often too. Winning one tournament is better than taking fifth many times, so there is often incentive to gamble, it’s just important to gamble at the right times. ♠

Bryan Devonshire has been a professional poker player for nearly a decade. With over $2m in tournament earnings, he also plays high stakes mixed games against the best players in the world. Follow him on Twitter @devopoker.