poker tourney tips

whether it's single/multi table, i dunno how to stay alive. i get knocked out in the very beginning :(

i usually only play small .25/.50 tables and win a couple of bucks and leave (that's how i get my money :) ) but i need tips for long term and staying alive. i'll probably plan on only playing $5/$6 fixed tourneys as my NL/PL poker experience is only in play money. hand out advice for a noob? :)

in my experience there is no correct way to play a FL (fixed limit) multi


hope that helps :sunny:

Fixed Limit Hold'em tourney's are the hardest to really get a hang of. Well either that or Hi/Lo Omaha. But anyway - if you are just starting out I dont recommend playing them. Took me about a year after i started playing poker to win my first Fixed limit hold'em tourney.

As far as limit goes at lower buy-ins I would say play really tight at the low limit levels. Once the blinds get high enough and enough people are busted then you can start making moves and playing to win pots since every pot won't have 6 people in it.

just finished a 1 dollar NL tourney, 45 ppl in it, got 2nd :)

people play REALLY tight in these. i only played like 23% of my hands

If you havent gotten a couple of the books I suggest getting Super System, Theory of Poker, and Winning at Championship NL/PL. These books helped me alot.

I am usually a master of staying alive late into tourneys. Havent been hitting great cards of late though. I'll give you a few tips though.

You can play 2 ways in tourneys, aggressive or passive. Alot of pros that are aggressive come in and play everything, the downfall being that they can get put out early and the upside being they can build an early chiplead. Alot of luck factors into this method if you ask me. You also have to be good at bullying people with a chiplead.

I prefer to play passive. For the first 2 levels I usually sit and wait. I only play mid hands when i can limp in late positions and usually only play great hands. If you can double up that's great, but unless you know you can't be beat then be aware that you can be runner runnered and out of the tourney. Always take notes on the people through the first 2 levels, itll help later on in the tourney of if you play with them again.

After the 2 levels if you havent hit anything don't get desperate. I play my pot odds through these levels and usually by now you will catch a good hand and be able to make some money if you havent already. You should never worry until your chips get 10-12 times the big blind. Then you might want to start looking at making a move. Especially when under 10 times the bb.

One thing I was always taught was if you get up decently in chips in the first 8-10 levels then you can just steal blinds as the bubble nears. If you steal one big blind a round you will always make final table. ;) However, it doesnt always work that way. Pick those carefully. If I think of any other tips ill let you know. Patience is the key though.

yeah, after 2 hrs i was like ugh :( i hit some pretty good hands i'll admit this time, but if i have to be this selective everytime...sigh. tourney's are so hard. when blinds get to like 300/600 and you ahve 16k in chips, chips drop out pretty fast when u decide to play a hand. i was only playing high cards (A/10 etc) and face suited like k/7. if it was under 7 i usually didn't play

You're alot more loose than I. ;)

dang you see. if you play even tighter than that ugh. j/10 is probably my least favorite hand just because i usually doesn't win for me. i tend to fold it. i only like playing when i have two high cards like a/q k/j or something. anything else i'm like eh. suited bothers me too b/c i never get flushes :\

the bottom line is, there is no method to winning a low stakes limit tourney because 99% of the players registered are as clueless as n9ne or ekos.

I havent got a lot of experience, but PL and Limit at .10 and that area, everybody is in every hand, and you cant convince them with a good bet to get the hell out, so chasing and fishing are standar practice. Im not sure about tournaments, but I would assume the same crowd, so pretty safe to assume the same play.

Bew hit it, in these tourney's you should play tight in the early rounds and in the later rounds you should push your big hands. You still need to be tight in the later rounds but when you do choose to enter a pot, you should be the raiser/aggressor. Don't get into the habit of limping in many hands, it's a losing play unless of course the situation dictates it. As far as books go, I would highly suggest Small Stakes holdem by Ed Miller and Vol one Harrington on holdem for NLHE tourneys.

what did i do wrong here? this one locked me out at 7th place

Table '8461186 1' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: cuffer (12503 in chips)
Seat 3: neece281 (12262 in chips)
Seat 4: zolloballs (4005 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 6: bradstr (10875 in chips)
Seat 7: jpholdem (16060 in chips)
Seat 8: halekulani (2168 in chips) MEEE :) big blind
Seat 9: rhd1968 (9627 in chips)
*everyone antes 25*
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to halekulani [Js As]
rhd1968: folds
cuffer: folds
neece281: folds
zolloballs: folds
bradstr: raises 800 to 1000 <--seriously what the hell?
jpholdem: calls 900
halekulani: calls 800
*** FLOP *** [Ad Jc Kc]
jpholdem: checks
halekulani: bets 1143 and is all-in
bradstr: raises 8707 to 9850 and is all-in
jpholdem: folds
*** TURN *** [Ad Jc Kc] [9c]
*** RIVER *** [Ad Jc Kc 9c] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
halekulani: shows [Js As] (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
bradstr: shows [3h Qc] (a flush, King high)
bradstr collected 5461 from pot

I dont think u did anything wrong, his call looks pretty bad after your all in, but it depends on what you were doing before this particular hand.

i dunno. the straight draw was a big risk, but i was low on chips. i play pretty conservatively in general. if you have two pair on a possible straight for your opponent, do you back down? nobody saw the flush coming i dont think. while the opponent has a chance for a straight, i also have a chance for a full house.

It was a dumb ass call by him (both the initial raise, and his call after the flop). You did nothing wrong, and you were sucked out on.

let me say again, there is no such thing as a correct way to play micro limit poker online. people just throw their pennies and dollars away for fun. you have to somehow save up enough money to play reasonable limits, where people value money yet are not very good poker players. bottom line is you get what you pay for.

let me say again, there is no such thing as a correct way to play micro limit poker online. people just throw their pennies and dollars away for fun. you have to somehow save up enough money to play reasonable limits, where people value money yet are not very good poker players. bottom line is you get what you pay for.


exactly...every person I know that makes money at online poker started out playing fake money online and then played low limit and lost a ton of money. It's the way most people learn. You can't even bluff decently at low limit because the skill level and low $$$ allows everyone to call 3 measly bucks.

about what stakes do those players start to show up more often than not eyecu?

well this wasn't a limit game..NL tourney