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Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.
Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.
In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.
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Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands
Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.
The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.
Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.
These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.
Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.
Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware
Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.
Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.
Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.
It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.
Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.
POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.
Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages
As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.
Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a strong hand like AK could be at a significant equity disadvantage facing a deep stacked opponents all-in range. Could you fold QQ here?
Rather than putting in an extra raise, often times just calling with even very strong hands in the early stage of a poker tournament has great benefits.
- Allows your opponents to continue with hands they were folding to a re-raise that you have crushed.
- Disguises the strength of your hand and keeps you unpredictable.
- Prevents you from getting all-in facing a super strong range where often times you're crushed.
Tip 4: Continuation Bet Aggressively But Not Always
Players have learnt the value of c-betting, but it's a strategy that is often misapplied. Being the preflop aggressor shouldn't lead to a mandatory c-bet and double barrels.
This is especially true in multi-way pots yet players continue to make fruitless c-bets with weak holdings into multiple opponents.
Even in heads-up situations, key factors to consider include;
- How does the flop texture interact with players ranges?
- Who has the strongest range?
- Who has nut advantage (the biggest share of super strong hands)?
- How passive or aggressive is the opponent we're facing?
- How does the stack size/SPR allow us to operate on the flop and future streets?
The following hand illustrates the effect nut advantage can have on profitable continuation betting and how it applies to this tournament poker tip:
Tip 5: Be ICM Aware
The Independent Chip Model or ICM, is a great model players use to make more profitable decisions when deep in a tournament and especially at a final table.
Unlike in cash games, chip values fluctuate depending on the stage of the tournament and the competing opponents stack sizes. At it's most extreme, ICM strategy can make A♠A♣: an easy fold preflop.
Imagine a situation in a satellite where 9 players get a World Series of Poker entry and there's 10 remaining. The action folds around to a player with 100,000 in tournament chips who moves all in from the small blind. You're sitting in the big blind with A♠A♣: and also 100,000 in chips. You look around and see a few opponents with only 1000 chips left, which is the size of the current big blind. Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon.
Obviously one of these short stacks is likely to bust very soon. Moreover the chance that they collectively out survive your 100,000 stack is extremely remote. You'd likely be a 99% chance to get a WSOP entry, so why would you call with your A♠A♣ and risk busting next around 20% of the time?
Aside from calling too wide in spots when the most profitable strategy is to proceed tightly, the opposite can also be true when it comes to pressuring your opponents. ICM allows players when they have the opportunity to assert pressure on there opponents stacks, to go ahead and do so liberally, since thinking opponents counter-strategy is to play a tight range of hands.
Here's an example of how drastically a hand range can change when the opportunity to assert pressure at a final table exists. 5 of the 6 remaining players at the Pokerstars Sunday Millions have 15bb's, whilst the UTG player has a short 2bb stack. Since the 15bb stacks wants to avoid busting out next and missing out on a large pay jump before the immanent bust out of the 2bb stack, the small blind can adjust their all-in range. Instead of the profitably 57% all-in range in normal play, they can move all-in with 100% of hands to apply pressure on the big blind.
Whilst the big blind should adjust their calling range from the regular 36% to just 10% of hands to account for the ICM effect in play.
The PokerNerve Road to Success course teaches players how to master ICM situations, which is key to tournament poker success since ICM comes into play as the prizes become significant. If there was only one tournament poker tip that you take away from this article, it's that you need to know ICM!
Tip 6: Bet The Appropriate Size
Strong players are capitalizing on their opponents tendencies to bet too big or too small in a number of different situations. With some similar considerations to that of continuation betting, when selecting a bet size important aspects include;
- Which player's range does the board texture favor?
- Who has the greatest nut saturation?
- How does SPR influence our betting strategy
There are many great articles online about bet sizing. You should be sure to check out ThePokerBank's and the Pokerology's to learn more about this tournament tip.
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Tip 7: Take Equity Realization Into Account
Possibly due to the popularity growth of Twitch, many poker players approach to big blind play has evolved. The current trend is to defend the big blind with virtually any 2 cards, as some top pros elect to do, and the justification for this is taking advantage of the excellent pot odds being offered.
While the inclusion of antes combined with commonly seeing a small open raise size does offer the big blind generous pot odds, this has led to a fundamental flaw in the way many players approach big blind play in poker tournaments. The key concept overlooked, is equity realization.
Equity realization reflects a players ability to take a certain hand, and win their share of the pot, frequently enough, to make it profitable in the long-term. Although some top pros have the ability to win their equity share of the pot even out of position, less skilled players rarely do. This leads to a large chip loss in the long run.
It is quite difficult to realize of your equity when out of position, with no initiative and a weak range. This means them glorious odds you are being offered aren't quite as good as you think!
The following article explains this crucial tournament poker tip in more detail; Equity Realization.
Tip 8: Don't Miss Double And Triple Barrel Opportunities
'One and done' is the plight of many aspiring tournament poker players. Everyday at the tables I see players missing profitable opportunities to double, or even triple barrel. Understanding what turn and river cards are advantageous to a players range, along with opponent tendencies, are crucial parts of a winning barreling formula.
The most common scenario at the table, is a heads-up pot where the big blind calls an open-raise. And this happens to be a great spot to barrel. Big blind defenders have a wide range, and it's important to pressure this wide range, especially on only partially connected board textures with one or multiple high cards.
RedChipPoker has a great article on spotting profitable double barrel opportunities which you can read here: THE +EV DOUBLE BARREL GUIDE
Tip 9: Check-Raise More Flops
The biggest difference between the current tournament population, and the future generation, will likely be their approach to check-raising the flop. This opportunity typically occurs in a heads-up pot, after defending the big blind verse an opponents raise.
Currently, MTT players only check-raise the flop in this situation around 7-8% of the time, when closer to 20% is a more optimal strategy. On certain flop textures, check-raising close to 25% of the time is an extremely profitable strategy. And if players are getting out of line with their c-bets, then check-raising at an even higher frequency could be a profitable exploit.
By giving up too easily on a wide range of board textures, or taking a more passive approach and simply calling, c-betting can be done with reckless abandon. However, by selecting a nice mix of check-raising hands, combining some strong hands with some good semi-bluffing candidates, a check-raiser can become tricky to play against and exploit the average players tendency to over c-bet.
POKER TIP: Applied correctly and check-raising becomes a super powerful weapon in your arsenal leading to more profitable poker results. But also think beyond the flop, there's plenty of check-raising opportunities you may be missing. This video demonstrates an interesting turn check-raise situation.
We discuss check raising strategy in more detail in our post over on unfeltedpoker.com.
Tip 10: Develop A Good 3betting Strategy
Whilst 3 betting aggressively is a strategy many players employ, especially in online poker circles, failure to apply optimal 3 betting strategies has certainly led to a lot of spewy poker. Simply attacking opponents who are suspected of opening wide doesn't cut it in the modern poker world.
Players have learnt to deal with 3 bets more profitably, by mixing in some calls with timely 4 bets. Moreover, the role stack size plays when it comes to 3 betting it still largely misunderstood by much of the poker community.
Sure there are certain stack sizes where 3 bets gain a lot of leverage, but how about the role blockers play? And when is 9♦7♦ a better 3 bet candidate than K♦T♠ ? These are just some of the considerations when it comes to a profitable 3 betting strategy. See how to design strong 3betting ranges in this article by Donkr.
Bonus Poker Strategy Tip: Avoid and Deal with Downswings
As a poker player you want to earn your money as easily and as stress-free as possible right? Well, understanding ROI, variance and bankroll management can help (see TopPokerValue's article on bankroll management).
All poker players at some point experience downswings. In some cases, this can affect their play, volume or state of mind.
You'll be miserable, hating poker, playing less and earning less per tournament as your play will suffer.
Along with finding ways that work for you to keep a positive mindset, taking pro-active steps can help keep you confident by knowing you are dealing with the situation like a professional whilst at the same time taking positive action to get back on track and winning.
What is ROI and variance?
Every tournament you enter has an EV associated with it. So if you enter a $10 tourney, as a good player maybe you have a 30% ROI, so you make $3. So it doesn't matter whether you brick that tourney or win it for $5000, you make $3 in the long run.
Now, of course, you don't make $3 each time. 80-85% of the time you lose that $10, some percentage of the time you win a little bit, and some very small percentage of the time you win a lot. How small those ‘small percentages’ are primarily depends on not only your skill edge, but also the field size which is an extremely important concept that is often ignored.
Variance is a factor of two things:
1) Your edge
2) The field size
Example 1)
You play the Hot $55 which has $30K guaranteed, every day for a year on Pokerstars. It has 1600 runners and you have a 5% ROI, because turbo ROIs are small. Your average yearly profit is $605 however you will lose money on the year 55% of the time.
Example 2)
You play a $20 tourney with $3K guaranteed on a softer site every day for a year. It has 200 runners and you have a 30% ROI, because it's a normal speed tourney and you’re against an easier field. Your average yearly profit is $2400 and in this case you lose money only 12% of the time.
A lot of people would look at those two tournaments and make a decision based on the buy-in and 1st place prize money as to which was better to play, and it would be grossly wrong. Once you accept all the above, you realise that the 'up top' number is largely meaningless.
Yes, on the same site bigger fields may mean a lot of fish have registered to play, but you'll find a lot of small field, soft, non-peak hour tournaments have a great pro-to-fish ratio and hence are great value. Of course once you consider other sites that have smaller fields, you'll often find they are a better choice than what might be running on Pokerstars.
So what can you do?
When players start losing money and along with that, confidence, not only does their game deteriorate but they often compound that problem by failing to make rational decisions. Often losing players, or players on a downswing, go 'bink chasing' and decide to take a shot to win all their money back in one tourney. Or load up some quick $82 hyper-turbos to try to turn it all around quickly.
People get overly fixated on what's 'up top' and wanting to score big in one tournament. That’s a sure-fire strategy to fuel a down swing. If your house got knocked down would you try to slap it back up in a week? Take that opportunity to rebuild a better, stronger house.
Make sure you're adding in some study and keep focused (see Sky's Matsuhashi How To Study Poker series), and stay fresh and positive as you approach each session. Be smart and get back into profit quicker instead of enduring a 6-12 month variance rollercoaster!
Closing Words On Tournament Poker Tips
Poker is a multi-faceted game which makes it fun but challenging. Challenge yourself to factor in the relevant concepts, and make more profitable decisions. Tighten up from the big blind, and in general around the table. This tip often quickly improves a new players results, or those that have a got a little sloppy with their play.
Calculate stack size using 'M'. Always be aware of your own, and your opponents stack sizes so you don't get yourself caught in awkward situations. One awkward situation that often comes up is when you hold an overpair to the board and an opponent puts the heat on you. Don't be afraid to make big lay downs to preserve your stack, especially in the early levels.
Be aware of your cbetting frequency. There's no need to waste tournament poker chips cbetting every time, especially when the pot is multi-way. Pick your spots to make profitable plays. Remember when it comes to the final table, regularly profitable playing ranges might alter due to the payouts. ICM is the key when it comes to those final big decisions.
Another key to success is knowing when to fire multiple bullets at your opponents. Barreling, especially against a wide big blind range can really help increase your non-showdown winnings. Finding ways to accumulate chips without always having the best hand is what top players do. This is why check-raising and having a good 3 betting strategy is so important. Correct use of these strategical concepts and the other tips outlines will get you winning more at the tables.
Now that you've acquired some great holdem tournament strategy tips to help you achieve MTT success, go out there an implement them!
One of the quickest way to improve your poker game is to take on a poker coaching, a course or join a poker training site; if that is something that interests you be sure to check out the PokerNerve road to Success Course for some advanced poker tournament strategy or you can check out HowToPlayPokerInfo's guide on poker training & poker courses to find the right option for you.
Any other poker tournament strategy tips? Leave them below in the comments, we would love to hear them!
Most of the best poker training available nowadays (taught by world class pros) is on poker training sites or through coaching which of course is not going to be free.
However, for beginners just getting started in poker I believe that there are a number of good free poker training options these days. And I am going to cover them all in this article.
1. Best Free Poker Training 2021 - Massive Profit at the Micros
The best free poker training in my opinion, especially for beginners, is without a doubt still my free poker guide, Massive Profit at the Micros.
This 50 page poker 'cheat sheet' teaches you all of the basics of how to win at poker at the lower stakes in particular.
I walk you step by step how to:
- Know what hands to play from all positions at the table
- When to bet, raise and bluff
- How to read their hand
- The best poker sites to play on
- How to finally stop tilting
- How to consistently make $500-$1000 a months at the micro stakes
People ask me all the time why I give away all this information completely for free.
And I guess firstly, the answer is that it probably won't remain free forever.
However, I know that a lot of poker beginners read my articles here on my website. And I want to make it as easy as possible for them to get started without having to invest large amounts of money in expensive poker training.
I also have some of the best results in online poker history at the lower stakes and I want to help others struggling at these limits to start turning a profit.
'Massive Profit at the Micros' has now been read by over 100k people and if you are struggling to win at poker at the lowest stakes, reading this free poker training guide will help you finally start winning.
Because that is really the whole point of this free little poker book.
Massive Profit at the Micros won't teach you how to become a poker pro. And it won't turn you into some high stakes crusher overnight either.
This free little poker 'cheat sheet' is instead intended for those who are playing at the lowest stakes and still can't figure out how to win consistently. Follow the strategies in this guide and you will start winning.
It's that simple.
You can go get your copy of my free poker training guide Massive Profit at the Micros, right here.
2. Best Free Poker Training 2021 - YouTube and Twitch
I think some of the absolute best free poker training these days is available on YouTube and Twitch. Because basically you get to watch professional poker players walk you through hands or even play live.
With YouTube in particular there is tons of great free poker training. Once again, I would recommend my own YouTube channel first especially if you play the micro stakes.
I put out brand new poker strategy videos every single week. My 4 part series in particular called 'How to Crush the Micros' has been extremely popular.
Make sure you are subscribed to my poker YouTube channel so you never miss a video.
What if you play higher stakes poker games though? Well, a poker YouTube channel that I find myself watching a lot lately is No Limit Gaming.
This poker YouTube channel features some of the very best online poker players in the world showing you exactly how they crush mid and high stakes games.
This video above for example features some of the best online pros in the world such as Steffen 'Go0se.core!' Sontheimer, 'LLinusLLove' and others at nosebleed stakes ($50/$100).
It is very rare to get such high level free poker training without having to pay expensive membership fees on a poker training site.
As for Twitch, there are countless full time streamers these days who basically play every day and live stream the entire thing.
Not all of them are professionals of course but it is still a good idea to check out some of the up and comers who are trying to beat the lower stakes games just like you.
Probably the most famous poker Twitch streamer these days is Lex 'RaSZi' Veldhuis. I often find myself binge watching his Twitch poker channel.
I would highly recommend checking him out! Tell him BlackRain79 sent you :)
3. Best Free Poker Training 2021 - Poker Forums and Reddit
Now I know I have been a little bit critical of poker forums and Reddit in the past. And I still think they are too often plagued by negative trolls and time wasting off-topic discussions.
However, I think there is still some good value in a few poker forums out there in particular. And poker forums of course are pretty much always free!
The #1 poker forum that I always recommend is CardsChat.
The reason why is because CardsChat has built up a nice sized community of mostly low stakes poker players trying to get better at the game and help each other.
You can post your poker hands or questions on CardsChat and usually get many helpful answers.
Now, people often ask me why I don't have a poker forum myself.
Well, the truth is that I actually do have a poker forum! Yes that is me by the way above answering questions on my poker forum.
However, the big difference between my poker forum (and pretty much every other one out there) is that mine is private and not open to the general public.
This allows me to make sure that I limit the amount of users only to those who are serious about improving their poker game and helping others in a positive way.
You can feel free to post your poker hand histories or you poker questions on my poker forum and you will get a reply often from myself personally or the other pros and semi-pros who post on there.
As for Reddit, I honestly have never been much of a big Reddit user but I do think there is some good poker strategy discussion for the most part in the main poker subreddit which is r/poker.
4. Best Free Poker Training 2021 - Poker Strategy Websites
Some of the best free poker training these days is on poker strategy websites like the one you are looking at right now, blackrain79.com.
I have written over 700 poker strategy articles for this website now covering how to beat the micro stakes games in particular. And yes, they are all free and they always will be!
For a complete list of all my most popular poker strategy articles in recent years (beginner intermediate, advanced and pro), click here.
There are several other quality free poker strategy websites out there though that I would recommend reading as well.
I often find myself reading the poker strategy articles over at Upswing Poker for instance. Upswing is well known as having some of the best poker courses available in the world today. I have actually reviewed several of them and I regularly recommend them.
However, many people do not know that Upswing also produces lots of high quality and totally free poker strategy articles on a regular basis. I have actually even written poker strategy articles for Upswing in the past myself and probably will again in the future.
The last poker strategy website that I recommend is also one where I am a regular contributor. This is the biggest poker news website in the world, pokernews.com
I write a monthly article for this website and they have a whole host of other high level professional poker players writing regular strategy articles as well.
5. Best Free Poker Training 2021 - Poker Podcasts
The final free poker training that I recommend is poker podcasts. Many people are surprised to learn that there are many high quality poker podcasts out there these days not only featuring interviews with world class pros, but also in depth poker strategy lessons.
If you have a long commute to work or you tend to workout a lot at the gym like I do, this the perfect way to improve your poker skills at the same time.
I am almost always listening to podcasts while working out. Two birds one stone right?
For example, I would recommend checking out
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Smart Poker Study. I was actually a guest on this poker strategy podcast on episode #162.Sky Matsuhashi (the host of Smart Poker Study) creates high quality poker lessons to help you improve your poker game. He talks about small stakes poker most frequently.
Another good poker podcast that I would recommend is The PostFlop Poker podcast. Again, this is another excellent poker strategy podcast that will help you with your game.
I was also a guest on this podcast on episode #49.
The final poker podcast that I would recommend is probably the most famous one in the world. And that is Joe Ingram's The Poker Life podcast.
While not specifically educational in nature, Joe regularly interviews some of the very best poker players in the world. And this gives you a deep insight into what it takes to get to this level of the game.
You can go listen to The Poker Life Podcast right here.
Most of these poker podcasts by the way can be downloaded directly on Spotify or on the podcast app on your smartphone.
You can almost always find all of these poker podcasts on YouTube as well. Joe Ingram for example posts all of his interviews (with video as well) on his Youtube channel.
Final Thoughts
So there you have my list of the best free poker training for 2021. The truth is that high quality poker training does not need to cost you an arm and a leg.Poker Online Real Money Reddit
Now of course yes, the very best elite level poker training available these days is often behind a paywall (it isn't free). But this really shouldn't be a huge shocker to anyone.
Information is power in poker and usually the best poker professionals in the world are not going to give that away for free.
If you want my list of the best advanced poker training available today, I have also written an article for that.
But there is also lots of great free poker training options out there these days for beginners in particular, my free poker strategy book for example.
You can also find tons of good high level poker strategy discussion on YouTube and Twitch streams, poker forums, poker strategy websites and poker podcasts.
Make sure you let me know in the comments below what you think the best free poker training is these days.