Key Tournament
Strategy Tips (Part Two)
Part two of our two part series
on key tournament strategy tips takes a look at tournaments
selection and deep stack overview, before looking at some key
points to take from both articles.
Tournament types and
selection
There are probably hundreds of
different tournament types available over an expansive range of
poker networks. The amount, for some, can be overwhelming and
it’s tricky to know exactly what variation means and entails.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common variants.
- Freeze out
– These are typically the most common poker tournaments and are
widely available on each site. It’s pretty simple really, you pay
your buy in, get given the same amount of chips as everyone else
and you play until you are knocked out. Some of the biggest
tournaments on the net are situated around freeze outs such as
Pokerstars’ Sunday Million and Party Pokers $500k. The ability
range can differ greatly and everyone from your recreational player
to your online professionals can be seen playing.
- Satellites
– A satellite is what is known as a feeder tournament often in to
that of a one with a much larger buy in. So, for example you can
enter a $10 satellite which may have 10 seats guaranteed entry to
another tournament which is $100 to buy in to. If you finish within
a certain position (could be the top 10), then you gain entry to
the $100 for only a $10 investment. A satellite is often seen as a
great way for players with limited bankrolls to play tournaments of
much higher value on a shoe string.
- Re-buy – A
re-buy tournament is one where you can keep buying chips when you
get knocked out up to a certain point in time. So, you pay your $10
to enter (some offer an initial re-buy straight away to double your
stack for double the starting stack amount) and then if you lose
all your chips you will be granted a little time – normally no
more than 30 seconds to buy back into the tournament with the same
amount you started with, in addition you can rebuy at anytime
within the allotted time frame when your chips drop below the
starting stack amount. Re-buy periods on average run for the first
hour of the tournament allowing you to have unlimited re-buys in
that period, however after the hour is up, the tournament switches
back to a freeze out type mode, meaning once your chips are gone,
you are out.
- Limited
re-buy – in these types of tournaments players can
re-buy only a limited amount of times. It often differs from site
to site, but most allow one rebuy until the first break and then
another once you get to the first break (add-on), then after that
it’s back to freeze out mode.
- Turbo – a
turbo style tournament is played similarly to a freeze out, however
the blinds will increase much faster. Say your standard tournament
had blind levels of around 10 minutes for example; turbo MTT blind
levels might increase every 3 minutes meaning the games are over
far quicker.
So, as you can see there are a
lot of variations of tournaments, and these are only but a few.
Each type suits different players styles so it’s up to you to
sample what works best and then to stick with that.
Deep Stack tournaments
Overview
Deep stacks tournaments are
often thought to be for the patient, thinking poker player and for
the most part, this is true. The structure and chip stacks will
give you a lot of time and more importantly, chips to play with.
Just going from the WSOP main event structure, you start with
20,000 in chips and have a two hour clock resulting in this being
the ultimate in deep stack tournaments.
Deep stacks aren’t for
everyone however and many struggle with the sheer amount of time
they have. A lot of players may play a fast paced game which
includes a lot of aggression, but a deep stacked tournament will
simply not provide this. As they fail to adjust properly, you can
see players making many mistakes just trying to force a bit of
action, whereas the players who sit tight and play their hands
accordingly, will be the ones that prosper.
The structures are so long and
forgiving that it requires a certain skill set to really master a
deep stack tournament. Let’s take a look at some points that you
can adapt to your game to maximise your game in a deep stacked
structure.
- Passive style
– When faced with such deep stacks a lot of players like to try
and get into as many flops as possible for as cheap as possible in
the attempt to flop big. Now whilst in a regular tournament, this
strategy would be ill advised, a deep stack gives you the chips and
the time to do so. Hands such as low suited connecters and one
gapers are hands we want to try and see a flop with. However, if we
adopt this strategy its important that we have a very sound
post-flop game otherwise it can become a ‘spewy’ style to
adopt.
- Playing small
ball – Many top pros have made livings from just playing
what’s called small ball poker. By this we mean making small
raises and small bets on the flop to try and take down pots as
cheaply as possible in an attempt to slowly accumulate chips
without too much opposition.
- Tight
aggressive – these players are looking to target players
in the first and second example and look to get paid with their big
hands. Instead of playing many hands in small pots, a tight
aggressive player will often sit and wait for their big hands in
the hope of getting paid off.
Key
points
- Working on your end game bet
sizing will massively help you at final tables when it comes to
closing out tournaments
- Limpers can be a great way to
maintain you stack and take advantage of their
weaknesses
- Squeezing, applied properly,
can win you some nice medium sized pots for little
effort
- Work on your tournament
selection to see which will give you the largest return on your
investment
- Look to change up your
strategy when playing deep stack tournaments
- Play to win!
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