Tournaments are a great way to vary your poker playing. The basic premise is that you want to be the last person with chips, thus making tournaments more about survival than they are about playing correct mathematical poker. Although many factors are the same, you will want to alter your strategy a bit in order to maximize your chances of winning big money.
Tournaments are different because you are eliminated if you lose all of your chips. Rather than being able to replenish your cash at an ATM, tournaments, for the most part, are lose and you’re out affairs. So you will want to avoid instances where you are not a favorite. Because poker is a game of averages, you will want to make sure you have a definite edge if you are going to bet a significant amount of chips, such as with an all in play. Playing averages is just not enough in a tournament situation. You want to only enter situations where you have a very good chance of winning.
Another big difference is that action between other players matters. You want others to be eliminated, but you also want to remain as a chip leader. The more people that are eliminated, the better you will finish in the poker tournament, and the more money you will win as a result. This happens more and more frequently as the tournament progresses because of a rising ante structure.
Inevitably, you will find yourself with a short stack. This makes playing hands difficult since you will be bleeding chips away with the blinds and antes. You will need to make a decision on which hand to risk the rest of your chips with in an all in situation. This is a tough position to be in, and the end result is very much a product of luck.
