Early Stage Tournament Strategy

The last thing a poker player wants is to exit a large tournament early. While it’s a little easier when you’re online as you can just fire up another tournament or walk away from the computer, live events are another story. The embarrassment of having to take the “walk of shame” past the other players still in contention is enough to make most people blush. If you want to try and avoid this from happening to you, stick around and hopefully these tips will help.

You should almost always employ the “tight is right” mentality when you’re in the early stages of a poker tournament. Stealing blinds and trying to push players off of made hands is generally not a good idea at this point. With average starting stacks of 1,500 or more chips and blinds at 10/25 levels, it’s simply unwise to attempt too many steals right now. The chip stack to blind ratio is so low that at this point in the event, it’s not that beneficial to you to pick up 35 chips worth of blinds.

What is more beneficial at this point is pick up small pots when you can. Look for opportunities when you have position on your opponents and press the action. While no one has a crystal ball that can look into the future, let’s take a look at a few hands where you may benefit from being aggressive early on.

The First Hand In A Poker Tournament

You’re on the button and you get two limpers and after you call holding Jack-Ten of diamonds, the blinds come along as well. Now the flop comes: 5d 9d Qh and it’s checked to you. It’s almost always wise to make a pot sized bet here because you’re on huge draw with the open-ended straight draw and the flush draw. Even better if you get action from the player that may have paired his Queen and puts you on a smaller pair because if you do complete your hand on the turn, you’re going to get paid off here. If you miss your draw, you may still win by sheer aggression depending on what your opponents are holding.

The 2nd Hand In A Poker Tournament

You’re under the gun (UTG) and pick up pocket Kings. You likely want to call here and not raise because if your table is particularly aggressive, it’s likely someone will raise before the action gets to the blinds. If that happens you have the perfect opportunity here to re-raise and pick up the pot right there. If the flop comes rags and the scary Ace doesn’t appear, you well bust an opponent that hits top pair.

Ideally you don’t want to risk all of your chips early in a tournament unless you’ve made a big 5 card hand or a set on a board with no flush or straight possibilities. Even pocket Aces are vulnerable pre-flop and bad beats do happen, so if it’s at all possible try to avoid getting your chips all in early unless you’re holding the stone cold nuts. They key to making it to the first break in any poker tournament is making wise decisions and staying away from situations that may require you to go all in. Try to adopt these measures the next time you play and you may well find yourself needing to brush up on your middle tournament stage strategy as well!