Poker Tournament Stages

There are three main stages of poker tournaments: early, middle, and late. What separate the parts of a tournament are the differences in how players perform in each phase. Early stage tournament poker should be considered different than middle and late, and so forth. Because the goal of a tournament, by definition, is to win the last hand, there is a lot of pre-planning and waiting that should be practiced throughout the tournament.

Early Stage
During the early stages, of poker plan on playing very tightly and sticking to the plan. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because the blinds are so small you can afford to make bets on marginal hands. You should actually have the exact opposite attitude. With cheap cards, be picky about what you play. At this stage, you can actually afford to ride the blinds out. Later in the tournament, they will eat you up.

As a general rule, playable hands in early stage would be AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and AK suited. Other strong hands may be acceptable, but only if you are in a good betting position. Resist the urge to bluff completely. Build a reputation of being that player who just doesn’t take risks early on. By implementing these suggestions as rules for yourself, you will allow for the fish to bust out without taking you down with them. You quite possibly could still catch a bad beat playing the five hands recommended above, but this is less likely than if you played just any pair. Always remember it’s the top finishers who will get paid. Winning hands early on is just irrelevant to the tournament as a whole.

Middle Stage
Once you have waited out a majority of other players to get knocked out of the tournament, you will probably at some point mid-stage be seated at a table with fair to solid players. This is when you will want to loosen up a bit and play poker as you regularly would. At this point, you are hoping to accumulate a nice chip increase, so you can make it through to the final stages with at least an average stack of chips.

Middle stage is also the time to bluff a couple blinds for two reasons. First, people start telling themselves how close they are to actually making it in the money. This causes an epidemic, if you will, as players lock up as they get further into the tourney. Second, you have become the player with the solid tight reputation. When you bet or raise, your opponents will respect it, which will gain you the stolen blinds you were hoping for. Don’t make the mistake of thinking, however, that a pure bluff with nothing to show is a good idea here. You must tell yourself you are not any closer to the money until you are in the money. Don’t lose focus of the last hand of the tournament.

Late Stage
At this point, you should be congratulated for your accomplishment, but you by all means shouldn’t expect to come out ahead. There are still players on the field who need to give you their chips and go home before you start becoming overconfident. Key your eye on the prize, though, and make a push for the cash bubble. Both your opponents and your chip stack in relation to the blinds will determine how you manage yourself at this stage of the tournament. If you are a chip leader, take advantage of your power and pressure the short stacks. However, if you are the short-stacked, be careful and wait for the optimal opportunity to go all-in. Blinds will now be through the roof. When the amount of chips in play in relation to the blind values becomes so minimal, luck becomes the predominant factor in the game, as players are forced to gamble on weak hands and vary from their typical strategy patterns.

Constantly check your chip stack in relation to how many rounds you can afford before the blinds will knock you out. If you can only play five or six more rounds, you should be actively seeking that opportune time to go all-in. When you are short-stacked, the best plan of action is to be aggressive, putting pressure on your opponents. When you aren’t short-stacked, you shouldn’t simply rely on your chips to coast you into the cash. You have to play to win, and the only way to do that is to continuously build those chips up. You can afford to gamble a little, so get some of those short stacks and decrease the player field. Also take advantage of the fact that your opponents aren’t going to be risking their seat at the final table either; get some of the chips off the mid-stacked players, who really can’t afford to gamble and quite simply don’t think they need to. Play smart and pick up as many blinds as you can.

Finally, study your opponents and get prepared to battle them in the final rounds of the tournament. If you do make the final table, you’ll want to know your opponents like your best friends, predicting their hands, their moves, and their behavior, all the while preventing them from reading you.