Expert Plays for No Limit Tournaments
How To Improve Your Chances of
Winning A No Limit Poker Tournament
What really sets apart the winning players in no limit tournament poker?
Here is a list of 20 key skills that sets apart the tournament poker winning players from the rest.
You should review each of these areas, evaluate yourself on a scale from
1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest) and work on improving your tournament poker game for 2009.
1. Entering an event with the right mental approach to tournament poker--playing to win and not just to cash
2. Entering a tournament poker event with a plan--when will you play tight, loose, aggressive, solid, etc
3. Embracing the risk in the game and realizing that you can't beat the luck inherent in poker
4. Identifying betting patterns of your opponents
5. Identifying tells of your opponents
6. Identifying your own betting patterns
7. Identifying the tells in your own game
8. Your skill at how to play pre-flop based on the strength of your hand
9. Knowing the importance of chips stack sizes on your decisions
10. Knowing how to adjust your game based on your position
11. Knowing how to make plays when you are card dead
12. Realizing the importance of and frequency to bluff successfully
13. Knowing the right time to push all-in
14. Knowing the right time to fold and realizing that sometimes it s right to fold when you are ahead.
15. Accumulating enough chips so you can survive at least one bad beat
16. Knowing how to play at the final table
17. Knowing how to play heads-up poker
18. Knowing the 101 winning moves you can use in tournament poker
19. Not letting your emotions influence your decisions and not going on tilt.
20. Making the best decision for every situation that comes up in tournament poker
If you scored each area, what is your total score?
Which areas do you feel you are weak and which ones do you feel you are strong?
Now take your total score and reduce it by 20%. Why?
You are not as good as you think. Almost every player over rates their own abilities in tournament poker.
How to Stop Getting Your Butt Kicked
You are a good poker player. You have read excellent poker books from winning poker pros and noted poker authors. These books tell you that their way is the right poker strategy to win a tournament.
You pay your money and enter a poker tournament thinking this time will be different. This time you'll win.
But, despite how good you think you are, and the great poker strategies you have learned from these poker books, you get your butt kicked again. Why?
The first reason is that much of what is written is not aimed at helping you play winning tournament poker. Think about it. If you were a Professional poker player and your livelihood is based on winning money from your opponents, are you going to reveal your secrets to your opponents?
In fact, many of the books authored by the Pros seem to want to make it easier for them to beat you, since if you follow their strategies they will know the cards you hold.
The second reason is that the other tournament poker books that are
written by famous poker authors focus on playing smart. Playing smart is about playing based on the math. These authors tell you the best starting hands given your position in relationship to the blinds. They tell you which hands do better heads-up. They talk pot odds, pot equity, range of hands, etc. This information is important to know, but guess what? These books only make your game so predictable that your play is transparent to your opponents.
The third reason is that you have not experimented with better ways to play poker. When is the last time you re-raised a pre-flop raise without holding a premium hand? When is the last time you fired the third barrel? When is the last time you floated a player?
To get better you need to work harder at your poker.
About the Author
Mitchell is a successful
poker author,
coach, & player.
He is a strategist
to business including
Procter & Gamble
and Hewlett-Packard.
PokerStars Intellipoker selected his first book
for international distribution to educate players worldwide.
New!
Play to win. Not to bubble.
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