Poker Strategy 101 - Getting Involved Early

Tournaments are a very tricky breed. Have you ever noticed that in the major tournaments you see a lot of pros go out very early or make it really deep into a tournament? They usually do not play for a couple of hours and then get knocked out unless they run into a monster or take a bad beat, why is this? Well it’s the ultimate Catch 22.

Well many pro’s will tell you that they like to play a lot of hands early while the blinds are small so they can amass a huge chip stack to use later. Sounds easy and most of all sounds smart. Well this is a good thing and a bad thing. I agree you have to get involved early but for more than just because the blinds are low. You get involved early more importantly because you want to take control of the table.

When I played my first MAJOR tournament I was like a deer in headlights. I sat at my first major tournament table and saw a pro 3 seats to my right (was happy he was there and not my left) and from the very first hand he let everyone know who was boss. How? Well first of all he was a pro and everyone believed he had a hand every time. But more importantly he was raising and reraising everyone when he was in a hand and just bullied the table like you were back in grade school.

Why get involved early? Well as noted the blinds are small so you can see a lot of cheap flops and hope to hit a monster. This does two things for you. First it will let people know that you will not just sit back and wait for a Aces or Kings. Secondly, it will set your table image for later in the game for bluffs and steals.

But it also affords you the opportunity to amass those big chip stacks. Remember in a tournament chips do not have the same value as they do in cash games. (More on that in a later article) Be careful when you do this. Yes you can see a lot of cheap flops with marginal hands. But you also have to get away from them. Remember you are looking to hit the monster flop and crack a solid hand. So when you partially hit or miss entirely or are on a big draw BE SMART.

If everyone checks to you and you partially hit or on a big draw or something of that nature, you can make a feeler bet and see where you are. If everyone calls, you need to do some serious calculations and reconsideration on what people have and what you do and don’t want to hit that turn and river.

That’s the tricky part. When you get involved early you also set yourself for taking a big hit and putting yourself into a big hole and making it easy to be knocked-out. Hence the Catch 22 aspect. When you play the marginal hands early and get some, you set yourself up for being out-kicked, out-drawn and outplayed. But if people are scared to get involved early and don’t want to risk a lot of their chips at the very beginning, you have a great opportunity to start building that stack for later. As always, remember Bet to Win.