10 Tournament Mistakes

This is the most common mistake made in tournament poker. It takes some understanding to get the hint that weak hands just don’t have as good a chance at winning as strong hands, especially for new poker players. Novice players will bet on any hand thinking they’ll hit two pair or three of a kind. This mistake is an expensive one and ultimately will drain your chip stack and get you knocked out of the tournament very early on. If this is you, tighten up your game, and utilize some starting hand strategy. Wait for the good hands and chill out in the mean time.

Don’t Under Bet a Strong Hand
Sometimes even when a player has a worthwhile hand, he will get out-drawn and lose because he bets too little early on. Instead, bet the value of your hand. If you have a good hand, don’t slow play it. If your bet is minimal, more of your opponents will be able to afford to stay in the hand because the pot odds justify a call; someone else, who otherwise would have folded on a bigger raise, will win on a draw and your great hand was wasted.

Don’t Go All-in Pre-flop
This is a dangerous move even on the best of hands—yes, even with AA in the hole. You typically won’t get any takers, except from someone who really may beat you; you’ll end up wasting a strong hand. The only time you will want to go all-in pre-flop (with a good hand) is in order to isolate a short-stacked player, who is trying to force the action.

Don’t Over Bluff
This is a common mistake for aggressive players. Using all-in bets to steal pots too much will backfire on you, and end up costing you more than you’re winning. You’ll end up in a hand you should have never been involved with in the first place. Limit your bluffs so that your opponents don’t know you are bluffing. When you do have to show your hand in a showdown, have something good to show.

Don’t Get Too Emotional
Don’t go on tilt. Understand the variance of poker, which means you will lose a lot more than you will win. Don’t give up or get angry at the game when things don’t go in your favour, even if they don’t go in your favour for a long time. If you keep your head on straight, you will have a better chance of using what chips you have left to come back up. When you let frustration get the best of you, you will end up wasting your chips. Be a sensible player and understand that you just can’t and won’t win every hand.

Don’t Misplay Your Position
Position is one of the single most important things in poker. When you are in good position (late position), you have the opportunity to act after your opponents do, which allows you to make a more educated decision on your own play. If everyone before you checks, go after the pot and try to steal it. If a player bets and then gets raised, and you don’t have the cards to withstand a showdown, fold.

Don’t Be Predictable
Study the behaviors of your opponents and know that they are studying you, as well. Therefore, it makes sense that you change up your game a bit. Don’t just play tight or just be aggressive. Any successful poker player knows that it is essential to analyze your own betting patterns, so that you can mix them up from time to time. Bet the same amount on AA that you would on suited connectors. If you eliminate consistencies in your betting pattern, other players won’t be capable of figuring you out.

Don’t Be Ignorant About Odds
If you have no understanding of the probabilities or odds of the cards, you don’t have much business playing poker. You can have success in poker reading opponents and guessing on your hands, but you really will never excel in the game if you don’t have a basic understanding of odds in poker. There is hope, though. You don’t have to be a genius at math to get this concept; just educate yourself on pot odds, as well as the outs of poker, and you will undoubtedly improve your game, which will allow for you to cash more often when you play in poker tournaments.

Don’t Over Focus on the Cards
An old saying in poker is, “Play the players, not the cards.” While the cards do determine the winner of the hand, they only matter if the hand goes to showdown. If you can keep that from happening, you are a better poker player than the masses. By forcing your opponents to fold or reading them and then pushing them into making bad decisions, you will win be more consistent at winning chips. The only instance that you should get to the point of showdown, and you do have to show your cards, is when you know you have the better hand, allowing you to extract a huge pot off some poor shmuck. Concentrate primarily on your opponents’ habits, patterns, and tendencies and not so much on your cards. Use your cards to help you govern your decisions, but consider other factors, as well.

Never Show Your Cards Unless You Have To
This is surprisingly one of the hardest things for poker players to resist. By showing your cards when you’ve won or lost a hand just for the hell of it, you offer your opponents a direct line to your brain. Even if you vary your style and follow all the rules, showing your cards is just an unnecessary and blatant tell. You should even be wary of showing your cards to other people, who aren’t active players at your table. They’re likely to be studying you before they are seated with you later on. By letting anyone know what cards led you to act in the way you did, you are giving up too much information about your game for no apparent reason. Just don’t do it.