Early Stage Poker Tournament Strategy

Successful poker tournament strategy involves adjusting your strategy at the various stages of the game. This is the first of 3 articles looking at tournament strategy – this time covering the early stages. The next article will look at the mid to end game stages of poker tournaments and then strategy for the final table is covered in part 3.

The early stages of poker tournaments are characterized by two important factors. Firstly the stack sizes are ‘deep’ relative to the size of the blinds. Secondly the opposition will be made up of many weaker players – giving you the opportunity to accumulate chips. These factors greatly affect your early game tournament strategy and will be discussed shortly. Firstly we need to take a step back in order to frame your early-game play in the context of your objectives for the whole tournament. You will certainly use a different middle stage tournament strategy later in the tourney.

The prize structure for poker tournaments rewards the players who reach the final table disproportionately to those who cash in the lower paying places. In some cases the smallest final table prize being 10 or more times the ‘just-in-the-money’ payout and the largest 100 times larger (or even more). This means that successful tournament players must play positive and aggressive poker in order to reach the final table. Playing conservative poker in order to cash will rarely provide you with adequate returns, while aiming for the final table every time you play will reap bigger rewards over time even though you will cash less often.

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Framing our ‘play-to-win’ objective in the strategy for the early stages of a poker tournament it should be clear that the primary objective is to accumulate chips. Accumulation has the bigger potential for reward than mere survival. Fortunately the ‘deepness’ of chip-stacks compared to the blinds means there is a lot of room for skillful poker play. The kinds of hands you are able to play with deep-stacks are far more varied than those in the later tournament stages. In the early stages of a poker tournament hands with big implied odds potential go up in value. These include hands such as small pairs and suited connectors – which may enable you to win a big pot when you hit the flop hard. Such hands should be played whenever it is ‘cheap’ to see a flop and can even be played for a small raise when in later position.

Conversely big unpaired hands go down in value during the early stages. Since many of your opponents will be seeing flops with a variety of holdings then flopping top pair can often lead to trouble. Caution should be used particularly when out of position or in a multi-way pot. During the early stages of a poker tournament there will be a large proportion of inexperienced players. This creates a quandary – playing pots against bad opponents can be dangerous, they are often difficult to put on a hand and can easily catch cards to beat you. Yet if you do not take their chips your opponents will…

Adjusting your poker strategy to play pots with inexperienced opponents needs to be put into the context of your overall objectives for the tournament – to reach the final table. The risk is worthwhile in order to accumulate chips. Isolate these opponents when you have a good hand, bluff less and be prepared to value bet with weaker holdings than usual. To summarize, early game tournament strategy is all about adjusting to deep stacks and inexperienced opponents. Your hand selection and play need to take these factors into account with the primary goal of accumulating chips. Your objective in the early game is to give yourself a chance of reaching the final table.