| Poker Tournament Traps |
Tournament poker can be a tricky proposition. One mistake and your entire tournament may go up in smoke. You could be the chip leader in one round and busted the next. If you're going to win a tournament, you are going to have to play well and get lucky for many hours. Here are a couple of traps you are going to want to avoid along the way.
Playing Trouble HandsA trouble hand is a hand, that if it hits, is likely to make the second best hand, such as A J or K T. When an ace or king comes on the flop, it is going to be very difficult for you to get away from these hands, even if there is heavy betting against you. If you are in early position, you probably should not play these hands at all. If you play a hand like this in early position, bet, and are flat called, it will be hard to know where you are in the hand. If you act later, it will be easier for you to gauge whether or not your hand is good based on how your opponents act. Being able to get away from trouble hands is part of what separates the professional tournament players from the amateurs. Remember that early in a tournament, you should have a big stack compared to the blinds, and can afford to wait for spots where you are more confident. Letting Your Stack Get Too LowIf you let your stack get too low relative to the blinds or the average stack, you will put yourself in an impossible position. You won't have enough chips to get anyone to fold when you move-in, which is an important option for winning the pot that you need to have, and even if you double up, you still won't have enough chips to threaten anybody. You should try not to let your stack get below 5x the amount of a round of blinds and antes. If you are in danger of this, you need to loosen up your starting requirements radically, possibly even moving with any two cards if you are in the right position. Don't let yourself get eaten up by the blinds. Some players want to try anything to hang on if they are close to the money, but unless the minimum prize for cashing is a substantial amount of money (for example you won a satellite to a $10,000 buy in event and the last prize is $18,000), you are often better served by taking a chance in order to get some chips and move up the ladder. These are some of the traps you may encounter during a poker tournament. Navigate these and learn to root out others, and hopefully you will soon find yourself at the final table. http://www.wsop2007.com/tournament-traps.php |
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