How do we play a poker tournament from the beginning to the end

Before you learn how to play a poker tournament, I'm telling you that the ACR site also offers withdrawals in over 160 cryptocurrencies.

Poker tournaments are extremely popular all over the world, many more players preferring them to the detriment of cash tables. However, to be successful, it takes a lot of patience, aggressiveness, and much attention. But what is the key to success? A universal recipe does not exist, obviously, otherwise everyone would use it, but we can build a very useful guide to tips and strategies that put you in a very advantageous position in the long run and greatly increases your chances to enter the cash or the final table.

Do not rush
Try to avoid concentrating on the total number of players in the tournament and just focus on what's going on at your table. This is the only place you have any influence - the other tables will run without help.

It is essential to remember that you can not win the tournament in the preliminary stages. Resist the temptation to check the chip counts the chip leader initially has; is irrelevant. The only thing you need to focus on is to see what your stack is like compared to the blinds. If you're in a comfortable area - for example, your stack is larger than 25 big blinds - then you do not have to panic, even if you have the smallest stack at your table. Just keep playing your game and if you're making the right decisions all the time the chips will come to you. Only in the final stages of the tournament, when you get into the cash or get to the last few tables, an important part of your own strategy will be to know how your opponents are doing.

What cards do we play
As we have already said, it takes a game as solid and fair as possible, with no useless play, bluffing or stealing. The strength given by the starting hands is the most important, so for now it's enough to put the game in position (evolving from the button is ideal, if not, make sure to get into the pots especially when you are in the late position - at the table) with aggressiveness and starting hand.

So, we advise you to choose the following categories of books, leaving the rest without much regrets:

The Big Three (AA, KK or QQ) - played at least 4xBB raise to insulate speculative hands. If on the flop you have up to two remaining opponents, count on the continuation bet, the chances of holding your best hand are still very high. Instead, if more players participate in the pot and become very aggressive in their turn, be more cautious: someone may have hit a set and you are on the edge of the abyss. However, as a general note, try to massively bet with such pre-flop cards, keeping your aggressiveness after the first three cards in the board. In the long run, you will have much more to gain and that is exactly what you are interested in.
A-K - *As with large pairs, generally with A-K, you raise the raise in any position. If someone calls a three-bet (re-raise) or four-bet (re-raise) you have to become more defensive. In the first case, you can pay to see the flop, while in the second situation the tip is to fold, with the chances of having the best hand. In general, we advise you to apply the 3XBB pre-flop strategy and to maintain your aggressiveness only if one of the pairs is completed on the flop. Although extremely powerful, the hand represented by A-K is one that produces the most eliminations in a tournament.

Pairs and A-x suited - the kind of hands you use when the pot is more players involved. It gives you the opportunity to win a lot of chips, but you have to be very careful with them. Pairs are good only to the extent that your set completes, while with the second category you are waiting for flush nuts. Be careful not to overpass them and pay more than ever (always check pot odds) to see a "street". If with big pairs and A-K I advised you to raise and early position, with this type of cards you generally want to play only from the position. So play them mostly from cutoff or button and generally with limp. If you decide to answer a raise with them, keep in mind that the hand is very likely to be dominated by pre-flop, so you have to be cautious.*

The extremely tight approach of the incipient phases also has another reward, less noticeable at first glance. Standing away in most pots, you protect yourself from fatigue, you consume much less. As such, you can be fresher and more focused on the middle stages of the competition, a very important asset.

Essential middle steps
In many ways, going through the middle stages of the tournament - when the blinds go up and the money entry is still a vague shadow in the distance - is the most difficult of all. At this point, your strategy should change and you should play a little looser. In the early stages, there is little advantage in trying to steal the blinds because they are very small. Instead, it's best to focus on making a hand and getting the maximum value out of it. However, after you have reached the middle stages, those faces suddenly become quite valuable, especially if the antes are involved. If you fold yourself when you are in the final position, try to steal the blinds as much as you can. There is no need to have a strong hand when you do this because you raise to steal, hoping there will not be a flop. Even if the small or big blind calls, then a simple continuation bet will often win for you anyway.

In the middle stages there will be a much larger range of stack sizes to which you should be careful. It is possible for your table to have small stacks of up to 10 BBs, medium stacks between 25-35 BBs and monster chip stacks of over 50 BBs. This creates an entirely different puzzle from the early stages when everyone has the exact same stack theoretically. It is very important to analyze the stack sizes of the players around you before making a move; for example, do not raise a weak hand such as 5-4 of the same color when the three players who still have to act all have between 10-20 BBs. It is very possible that one of them gets all-in, making it impossible to call. But if you have that hand and the players who still have to act have between 25-35 BBs, it is a perfect opening hand, because they are more likely to call or fold than to go all-in.
If you can build a stack in the middle stages then you will have a great chance of getting the money and doing a deep run. Find out more about how to make money, get to the final table.

Money entry
As in most poker situations, it's just as important to be aware of what your opponents do at the money, just as it's important to know and do what you do. In a huge tournament, you will be playing for hours (or maybe even days in a live event) to get to the stage where you get money. For many players, this will be a great emotional investment; after significant time and energy consumption, the possibility of eliminating without getting into money is unthinkable.

Here are two things that need to be done: the first is to avoid thinking about it. Of course, it's good to make money, but the main reason to play big tournaments is to try to get to the final table and win. There are huge prizes. If you play extremely tight and allow you to be overtaken when you enter the money, then you will often earn money, but you will have so few tokens that you will not be given the chance to move on. So the second thing to do is to exploit the players who think that way. If you see a player who folds too many hands (just as you probably did once), then make sure you steal his blinds every time! He will only answer if he has a monster hand, so your decision will be easy. Even if you see a flop, you can be sure he will fold his hand to the river if he is not very strong - assuming you have the chips needed to do this, put pressure on him and watch him fold continuously.

The period leading to and near the money entry is often tense and tight. However, as soon as they get the money, get ready for the massacre! All those with stacks of less than 10 big blinds, who have desperately tried to make money, are now very much willing to put their chips in the middle of the table and risk to build a stack. This can be another opportunity for you to accumulate chips if you are careful. You should lower your standards to call those all-in. Let's say you're in difficulty with 9BBs in the first hand after the money; I would call in this situation with pairs 44+, K-9 +, A-7 + and even hands like Q-J of the same color. This is a significantly more loose range than if you were in a 'normal' stage of the tournament and reflects how loose and unbalanced the game is often right after cash. Get some of these eliminations and you can increase from one stack to one of the biggest, preparing for a sprint to the final table.

How to win
Up to this point you have resisted hundreds or even thousands of other players and the finish line is visible. It feels like you've done all the hard work, but it's not really true. Every decision you make in the final stages is more important than any of the ones you have taken before - because the stakes are much higher. Look at things like this: when you get the money you will double your money at best if you get a small cash. But if you win the tournament, you can get your original buy-in hundreds of times! At this stage, it is more important than ever to pay attention to every detail in the tournament. If only a few tables remain, it's a good idea to open the other tables in the PokerStars game program and watch the other players play. This information may be essential for the final table.

Another variable you will face is that as it progresses, the tournament will not be a full ring and there is a big difference between playing poker in 9 players and, say, poker in 5 players. As you approach the final table, the tables will be automatically balanced by the game schedule to ensure fairness for all players. This may mean you can get to play short-handed - if that's the case, then you need to adapt your game. The biggest adjustment you have to do is to play loose and aggressive the fewer players. When there are fewer players against which to play, the average hand power will be significantly reduced, so although a hand like 9-9 can be considered decent when playing in 8 players, it becomes a monster hand when it only plays in 4 players. This concept is obviously extremely important at the final table where you will play against a different number of opponents each time one of them is eliminated.

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Final table
The tournament end is difficult to manage, the pressure - released with the cash - re-emerging as a result of the very high stakes. The difference from one place to another translates into a lot of money, so you have to see what your priorities are: you play for an extra amount or to win. In the first case, if money is the top priority, our advice is to play tight. Instead, in order to have a good chance of winning the final, you have to mix your game, constantly put pressure on your opponent.

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It also depends very much on the stack that you have in front. As you have already reached the final table, and in front of you is a chip mountain (you are a chip leader) you are exactly in the position you wanted. Be more cautious now, because you have nothing to risk in vain. The stack guarantees your presence among the last if you play correctly and do not take unnecessary risks. Conserve your advantage, manage it as well, because in no-limit hold'em one or two mistakes are enough to completely "swallow" your huge stack built for so long. Instead, if you have a stack of about 20 to 30 big blinds, the approach has to be different: awaits the right hand for shove all-in, because that's the only way you can get back into the cards. However, be careful not to wait too long to push, because often, if you have too few chips, you will be paid by more opponents who will try to isolate you in an attempt to get you out of the tournament.

Last but not least, mass action can dictate the right approach. If more aggressive, loose-fitting players remain in the competition, you should come back to the tight, extremely patient style to catch them, obviously as the front flips allow for such a tactic. Instead, if most of them evolve very well in the book, the right strategy is to put pressure on them and try to steal as much as possible from the position.

Use the tactics and approach suggested in these two articles and you'll have a good chance of doing a deep run, but it's up to you! Good luck!