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Building a chip stack in poker tournaments is a
multi layered process. During the first hour of No
Limit Texas Holdem tournaments you should
basically be playing solid poker. Blind stealing
is of secondary importance. Come in with
speculative hands with high implied odds in
Late Position, but otherwise just play solid.
After the first hour or
so, tourney play becomes less and less about the cards
and more about situations. What you hold is of
relatively less importance than how many chips you
have in front of you vs. your opponent and the precise
stage of the tourney you're in.
Look for opportunities to set traps, induce bluffs
- Don't just bet your strong hands, check-fold your misses and
slow play your monsters. Those
betting patterns will get picked up on. Say you have
top pair AK on an A86 board with a two flush. You
strongly bet the flop and turn (a brick) out of
position and get called. River comes another brick, no
flush. I would check here in many instances and call a
bet. If you bet, you're not going to get called by the
missed draw and you may get raised by a hand that was
trapping you with a set or two pair. You may miss a
value bet from a player with an inferior Ace who ends
up checking behind on the river, but against
aggressive players I like to check and let them bluff
at it, or save myself some chips by not getting raised
when they do have me beat. This kind of bluff inducing
is a real stack builder.
When you have
position you'll
sometimes get more chips if you check behind on a flop
that hits you with something as simple as top pair,
fair kicker but has a two flush. Most say bet and
"make draws pay", but when head's up in a tourney, you can
risk a free card as it's not likely that he has that
exact draw. Try to induce the bluff against a hand
that missed completely on the next card. Checking and
playing passively like this works well against overly
aggressive players. Since most of the time when you
check, you fold to a bet, they'll take a check for
weakness so you should check behind even only
moderately strong hands as well as your monsters.
Making draws pay is not nearly as important a concept
in your typical HU match up in NLHE as it is in your
typical multiway pots in limit ring games. So
obviously bet strong if against more than one
opponent.
Blind stealing
- Once the blinds
get to 50/100, then you need to open up and start
stealing. As others have suggested, this means just
open raising when it gets to you in late-late-middle
position with just
about anything. Not every time, but enough to at least
keep pace. Sometimes you don't get a lot of chances as
there are raises ahead of you by aggressive players.
Middle stages is all about stealing so you can't just
wait for cards or you'll get ground down. You don't
always have to have it folded to you to steal either.
Sometimes you'll get one of those guys who limps too
much looking for multiway action. You'll know he's
doing it with a moderate hand since he's done it
before and check-folded the flop. I often take a "no
limping on my button" attitude and will raise any 2 on
the button and watch him and the blinds fold and pick
up a nice pot.
Firing second barrel - When you do
get called by one of the blinds you often have to lay
out a good sized bet even if the flop misses you. That
can be scary when you were stealing with 75o and the
flop comes A8Q, but often that board is just as scary
or more so for your opponent. You'll get him to fold
hands like medium pocket pairs in these situations.
You pick up even nicer pots when you have the guts to
fire out again. And if you get check-raised, easy
fold. You have to be careful sometimes and check
behind in these situations and just check and fold on
the turn as a check raise may cost you too much. You
can't fire out at every single flop as a savvy player
is looking to put the big check-raise on you. That,
and you want to set up later plays for when you do
flop a big hand and induce a turn bet by your foe by
checking behind. However, I usually err on the side of
firing out on any flop when checked to in these
situations.
Try this in your next low buy in
tourney as an experiment. Once you're into the 2nd
hour with an above average stack and you're not in any
<10BB all-in or fold mode, try raising every time it's
folded to you on SB, button, CO, CO+1 and even CO+2.
Often you'll find the players behind you to be very
tight and passively trying to survive and you'll pick
up tons of blinds. Finally, they catch on to your
bullying ways and stop waiting for AK and play back at
you with A9o. Hopefully, that's the time you have AK
or a big pair and bust them. One caveat to this
experiment: don't steal with garbage from a stack so
short that if he moves in you're obliged by odds to
call. You're just asking to double them up and you
don't really want to show your stealing hands. And
don't try to bully a LAG guy who has 10X your chips.
And don't do it five times in a row when it's folded
to you on a real tight table...well you get the idea,
do it when the situation calls for it.
Semi-bluffing - Another place to
get aggressive is semi-bluffing. Don't call with draws
as you might early when getting pot odds, raise with
them. This is generally for HU situations, which will
be the vast majority of the time. There's a good
chance your opponent is just bluffing at the pot too
and missed, so you'll get a lot of lay downs. And if
called, you always have your draw to fall back on.
Blind defense - Another place to
get aggressive in the late going is blind defense.
You're seeing it suggested here that you steal with a
lot of nothing. Well, others are doing it to you when
you're in the blinds, so you have to make them back
off. If you're just passively giving up your blinds,
or calling and folding on the flop often, then you're
just asking for misery. Sometimes you have to play
back at the stealer by moving in on them. Sometimes
you should do it with some marginal hands, too. Going
all-in with 76s is not something you want to do very
often, but you have to send a message that you're not
to be F-ed with. If you do make a "backoff" stand with
a moderate hand like this, try to do it with a hand
where if you're called, at least your hand is live. So
I'd probably rather have 76s than K7o.
Another blind defense tactic is the
stop-n-go. Call the steal raisers bet and fire out a
good sized bet on any flop. Again, doesn't matter what
your cards are, you're just hoping the stealer missed
and put him on the defensive.
Representing hands
- Every once in
awhile you want to represent a hand you don't have and
play it like you would if you had that hand. So a club
draw on the board and you aint got no clubs. Play it
like you made a flush when a third club hits. Again,
this is a HU only type play, not for multiway pots and
is to be used sparingly. But it's another way to pick
up chips when you don't have the cards to back them
up.
Questions and
Answers to this Article
Question: What if you have a nice stack and
the guy is one of those big stack calling stations who
likes to see flops with 42s (and will thus call your
button raise).
Answer: I'll steal with any 2 when the
blinds are not defending or if it's the bubble and
everyone is uber-tight. When there's a calling station
that has me covered, then I usually won't steal with
just anything, but if he's calling with 42s, then
you're going to be picking up more pots when you fire
the 2nd barrel on the flop as he'll be missing most of
the time.
Question: I find the worst thing for me in
tourneys is that perpetual EP limper/limpers that make
me too paranoid to try for the steal - plus when
they're there you have to raise more to make it
incorrect odds for people to call with marginal hands,
which can make the pot bigger than your stack can
handle to fire the second barrel.
Answer: I don't suggest stealing when
there's already limpers and firing out big bluffs in
multiway pots. Here you need to raise with the goods.
My suggestion was you can still steal with one limper
who's been limping a lot and you've seen folding to
raises, but most of time when it's multiway you should
generally have a real hand when you're firing out
bets.
Q: I find that this can often help me
build my stack, but doing it at the wrong time can
hurt my stack and when I happen to guess wrong twice,
my tourney chances are usually reduced to me getting
into an AA vs. KK or winning a coin flip real soon
before the blinds cripple me.
A: Well, yeah, there's that risk.
Firing the 2nd barrel usually happens at the 100/50 to
200/100 levels. Here you have blinds worth stealing
but stacks are still pretty big relative to those
blinds so getting check raised gives you a dent, but
you usually still have some stack to play with. At
later levels it's more difficult as firing out on the
flop can leave you crippled. Of course, if you're
short stacked you should just be moving-in in the
first place on your steals. But when you're in that
nether region between moving in and getting crippled
if you are called or raised on a missed flop then I
usually back off on stealing, or will just check fold
if I don't win the blinds and miss, or I'll just sit
back and wait for a hand.
Bet sizing is important, too. I
usually raise 3X BB all the time when I open raise
preflop. Some players always pot it when they bet the
flop. When I bet the flop I usually make it about half
to 2/3 the size of the pot whether I have nothing or
the nuts. This way I save some chips if I get played
back at on bluffs, but I still bet enough to deny
draws odds when I do have a hand worth protecting. I
save pot sized bets and all-ins for the turn and
river.
Q: Do you want to have the raiser
covered before doing this, or would you ever want to
risk this against big stacks?
A: Well the more chips they have
relative to you the more likely they'll call you down.
Usually you need to have enough to put a good dent in
their stacks. And it works much better if you have
them covered and put them to the question. How much
you bet really depends on your stack vs. his, how much
he's been stealing, etc.
Building a Stack
in No Limit Tournaments
By eMarkM
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