Does Grandma Play NL Holdem

No limit holdem tournaments have become very popular. Many poker players are starting to give the tournament format a try. Let's look at some ideas to help with tournament play.

As in any poker game, first get a feel for the table you're at. If everyone is playing an aggressive style, you might want to pick your spots and just look to double up. If the table is more passive, take control and see what you can do.

In the early stage of a tournament, everyone is somewhat deep stacked. This is when you can play "poker". Later, when the blinds get huge in relation to players stack sizes, it becomes more of an all in pre flop type game.

When players have a lot of chips compared to the blinds, you can play weaker hands, looking for well disguised monsters. On the other hand, big poker pairs need to be handled with care. If you don't hit the flop you might be behind. These hands can be hard to fold, and become costly.

If you have big blinds relative to the stack sizes, this turns thing around. You have to be careful not to waste chips chasing hands with weak cards. But, when you get a big pair you need to play it hard.

Here lies the dilemma for inexperienced tournament players. They tend to just play the hand. They don't take into account the whole picture, which includes how their stack relates to the size of the blinds, and more.

When blinds are big, stealing the blinds has good value. But, you need to judge how each player will react to your bet. Their stack sizes are your best clues. I'll give an example.

Here's the scenario. You have 1700 chips on the button. The action has folded to you. Blinds are 150/300 with a 25 ante. Both the small blind and big blind have 8200 chips. After one more player goes out, everyone's in the money.

It is very hard to go all in without a very strong hand here because it's easy for either player to call your bet. It might be better to wait. This is dictated by the fact that these two stacks are very large compared to yours.

If the small blind has 10,000 chips, and the big blind 13,000, things are very different. These two will fold unless they have big hands, so you can go all in with a much weaker hand and be confident to steal the blinds most of the time.

Good tournament players are always considering these factors when deciding how to play. Their hole cards are just a small part of the equation. If you want to join the ranks of the good players, get a clear understanding of these things and you're on your way.

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