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Poker Tournaments differ from Cash games

Poker tournament are fun and exciting.  They are also extremely frustrating.  Tournament poker is a boom or bust undertaking and there can be a long time between big wins.  Although cashing is nice, final tables are what really pays the bills.  To make final tables you can not treat tournament poker like you do a cash game and certain adjustments are necessary. 

Evaluating Tournament Structure

In cash games the structure remains static, and patience is required for optimal play.  Conservative play is generally rewarded in cash games.  Tournament poker allows no such luxury.  The blinds are continually rising, forcing you to play more and more hands.  How quickly they rise and how many chips you have will have a major impact on your strategy.

Your poker tournament should start before the first card is even dealt.  Take a look at your starting stack and how quickly the blinds will go up.  Generally speaking the larger the tournament, the better the structure it will have.  A good structure will give players plenty of time to work their chips.  Starting stacks will be large relative to the blinds and the increase in blinds will be smooth with long rounds.  A good structure benefit’s the better players, and makes luck a less important factor.  You should make every effort to only play these tournaments with good structures.  Your edge will be larger in these events.

Different structures will necessitate different playing styles.  This flexibility is very important in tournament play.  If the structure is extremely fast then it is usually best to be willing to gamble early in an attempt to gather chips.  In these fast structured events you simply cannot wait patiently for premium hands or you will be continuously short stacked and constantly be in danger of elimination.  A few calculated risks can give you the chance to have much more maneuverability if they pay off.  This often will make the risk worthwhile.

In tournaments that have very good structures you will have many more options available to you.  What style you play should be chosen primarily based on the table complexion and your natural inclination or style of play.  Where fast play is necessary in tournaments with a fast structure a variety of playing styles can succeed in a tournament with a good structure.

Chip Dependant Strategies

In a cash games players usually have enough chips to play a hand all the way to conclusion with betting occurring on every street.  Whether the tournament is Limit or No Limit Poker this is often not the case in poker tournaments.  This can change the way certain hands should be played and the ones who understand this the best excel in tournament settings.

One of the most prevalent mistakes made by tournament players is to play a short stack similarly to the way that they play a larger stack.  For the purposes of this discussions a short stack will be considered anything less than 10x the big blind.  When your stack gets this low you should be in push or fold mode.  There is no more limping in and trying to hit a big hand, or raising a small amount to steal the blinds.  Your chips are too precious to squander a single one of them in this fashion.  The blinds at this point represent a significant portion of your stack and if you are going to play you need to move in and put maximum pressure on the players yet to act.  This advice also applies to later in the hand.  If for instance you were to get a free play in the big blind and had only 7 big blinds left you should generally either move in or check/fold depending on the circumstance.  Generally speaking anytime that a bet would commit you to call for the rest of your chips if raised you are better off to put them all in initially rather than making a smaller raise.  Like every rule in poker there are plenty of exceptions especially if you happen to flop a monster hand.  That said, this is generally a sound concept. 

In addition to adjusting your play when you have a short stack you also must adjust when you have a large stack.  When you have a significantly larger stack than the other players at your table you are at a major advantage.  You can eliminate other players from the tournament, but they cannot eliminate you.  This psychological factor creates many opportunities for you to continue to accumulate chips.  Use the extra chips as a weapon to pick up blinds and win small pots.  The extent to what you can do this depends in large part on how much your opponents will let you get away with.  If they will continue to let you run over them and steal blinds and small pots then be relentless and pick up every extra chip you can get your hands on.  These chips will come in very handy later in the tournament.

While you should be willing to engage frequently and use your chips as a weapon to accrue more chips you must show more caution in large pots.  The best situation you can find yourself in is when you can continuously win small pots without risking many chips to do so.  This will allow you to grow your stack with very low risk.  If losing a pot will hamper your ability to do this, but folding will leave you with a large enough chip stack to continue to chip away you may want to lean towards folding even when the pot odds indicate a call may be correct.  This cannot be taken too far but in close situations it is worth considering.

Tournaments differ from Cash games - part II