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Basic Texas Holdem Tournament Strategy

I bet you all heard about how basic tournament play should go: act tight in the beginning, gradually loosen up, then go into a betting frenzy in the heads-up stage of the tourney.

There’s nothing really complicated in it, however, if you truly want to understand why you should play like that, pay attention to the rest of this article.

Dan Harrington has established a system, which classifies the different stages of a tournament (STT or MTT) according to the relation between the player’s stack and the blinds (BB+SB). As you probably know, in a tournament, the blinds are on a continuous rise. If you play passively, sooner or later you’ll be simply blinded out.

Harrington has named the variable made up by the addition of the BB and the SB, “M”. Considering how many of these Ms you have left in your stack, you will find yourself in one of these situations:

1) You have more than 20 Ms. This is usually the case in the beginning of a tournament, or after you have just managed to eject someone from your table, for all his worth. During this stage, you can afford to play the game whichever way you like, tight or loose, and you can make intricate strategic moves like coming over the top on a raise or trapping someone with a check-raise.

Because of the size of your sack, you’ll be well respected at the table. Just about the only challenge you’ll be facing is how to further increase your bankroll without putting it to risk.

2) When your stack has between 10 and 20 Ms, you’re becoming vulnerable. The situation is not bad at all, but you’re already beginning to feel the pressure. You have to do something or otherwise, you’ll soon be in a much worse position. You still have almost the whole arsenal of strategic moves at your disposal, but you can no longer play in an extra-tight defensive manner. This is where most rookies make fatal mistakes. They feel compelled to act, so they mess up by committing on something they shouldn’t have committed on.

3) There are but 6-10 Ms left in your stack. This is where you’ll have most of your poker weapons pried from your hands. No longer will you be able to make people fold, no matter what you do. Forget about more advanced strategic moves. This is the stage, in which the other players at the table start regarding you as a victim.

Try to make a move that looks like a steal, on a really solid hand, remember, the odds of other players calling you will have risen by the time you reach this stage.

4) When your stack falls below 1-5 Ms, the end is drawing near. By this time, you’ll be limited to going all in, on anything you consider worthy. You’ll still be able to see quite a few hands, but remember, when you commit on something, it’ll most probably be an all-in. This is exactly the reason why you should select your starting hand extremely carefully.

5) There’s less than an M in your stack. The end is in sight. You can literally tell how many starting hands you’ll be able to see before you get blinded out. Do not wait for the BB to come upon you. Choose a reasonably strong starting hand (which is an extremely relative issue here) and look for the right circumstances. Do not commit the mistake most beginners do: wait for a bunch of limpers ahead before you commit. What you want is to have as few opponents to go up against, as possible. If someone ahead makes a raise that forces most of the other players out of the hand, it is your clue to act.

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