Early Stage Tournament Strategy

Early Stage Tournament Strategy is simple and to the point, “play tight.” Early on in tournaments there is no reason to go after blinds and build up big pots without having big hands. Ideally, you want to sit back and wait for the other players at your table to make moves at pots and pick them off. Early in tournaments you want to look for big pairs and try to trap your opponent to losing half or their whole stack. You should be an observer more than a player at this stage of the tournament. There is no reason to go after miniscule blinds with weaker hands simply because there is a great risk and a small reward. However, if the pot is built up with a raise and then a bunch of people make a call before the flop; you can make a call with a 67 suited or small pocket pair if the odds are there. If you are the last to enter a pot and it is 5 way to the flop you are getting a good enough price to try and flop a straight, flush or three of a kind.

The thing to stay away from is playing pots out of position with a lot of your poker bonus money in the pot before the flop with a weaker hand if you can. Playing against only one or two opponents with a hand like QJ is something that can get you stuck and putting money in the pot drawing dead. If you have a hand like an AQ from the small blind you will be stuck in the hand if an ace or a queen doesn’t come and be giving your opponent free money or chips. So sometimes it is best to just lay an AQ off suit down if you are out of position early in the tournament because there isn’t much reason to put a lot of chips in just yet.

Playing early in tournaments is a waiting game and a figuring out game. If you can look through your table and pick out the aggressive players versus the passive players you will be better off throughout the course of the tournament. The key early in tournaments is to try and figure out and gain as much information as you possibly can. Poker is a game of information and everyone gives it out. It is up to you to figure out what the information means and interpret it to benefit yourself. If you can begin to see what players are doing what it makes the early stage of the tournament much easier. You can have more success and play fewer pots, but, when you do decide to enter a pot you have a better understanding of how to get chips from your opponent. If you can figure out the slight differences in each player’s game it will allow you to play hands differently than you would have if you haven’t previously looked at what others were doing. Paying attention is something you need to do at the early stage of a tournament. Don’t be too concerned with doubling your stack up early in the tournament because it will land you on the rail waiting and watching the rest of it.