No Limit Multi Table Tournament Strategy
Multi Table Poker Tournaments have an evolving strategy throughout the contest. Those who play the same way from start to finish fail to recognize some of the fundamental qualities of a consistently good tournament player, thus are doomed to failure.
At the start of the tournament everyone starts with a set amount of chips. For example, everyone starts with 2000 chips. At this time the blinds are only about 10/20 chips. If the table you are at is quite passive it is generally worth calling the blinds just to see the flop. It is not costing too much in relation to your stack and if the flop gives you a monster hand quite often you can catch a player intent on grabbing an early chip lead. Only go all-in when you are at least 90% sure of winning the hand because if you lose your 2000 chips you are out of the tournament. If you win and double your stack to 4000 you are still a long way off winning. You must realize that in the later stages of the tournament the blinds will be up to 4000/8000 so why risk all your chips at this stage unless you are fairly sure.
Avoid bluffing too much at the early stages because you are not really getting value for your risk. You still have to play in hands to build up your stack because the blinds will start eating away at them. Progress steadily, don't worry too much that the chip leader has 10000 chips at this stage because they are probably taking far too many chances and with patience you will start to claw their lead back. Just concentrate on taking small low risk pots.
Now when you reach the middle stages of the tournament you must alter your strategy slightly. The blinds are getting bigger in relation to players stacks. There is now much more to play for. You need to start introducing the concept of stealing blinds to survive and avoid being blinded out. It takes a weaker hand than usual to raise and steal the blind but stronger hand to call a raise. If you find yourself in a good position at this stage you may be able to bully shorter stacked players into folding because they are intent on protecting their remaining chips just to stay in the tournament. Take control of the betting but don't steal too many pots because some players who are short stacked will go all in pre flop with pocket 2's or A-10 so why gamble on the mercy of the flop. So just keep picking up the occasional blind to keep ahead of the game and wait for a monster hand to trap someone.
Towards the later stages of the tournament, due to the size of the blinds people are more likely to go all-in pre flop. When you do go all-in make sure you are sitting on at least an Ace with a good kicker or pocket pair. Holding pocket 2's against someone with A-K, you have about a 55% chance of winning the hand pre flop. At this stage you have to be very aware of player position and the other players stack. At this stage in the tournament you cannot wait for a perfect hand or you will soon be blinded out of the tournament.
Make sure you now exactly how many position gets paid out. You can play more aggressively against those just trying to survive the blinds to reach the payout but be very wary of those with a large stack or you can be knocked out of the competition, missing out on the money with your tail between your legs.
FURTHER READING : POKER TOURNAMENT VARIATIONS
Limit v No-Limit - Identify the different tactics between Limit and No Limit poker
Sit n' Go - The slightly ammended tactics of the popular single table tournaments
Heads-Up - One on one poker. How to dominate the other player.
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