Hello all, I've learned so much from this board and the people here now that I have gotten some more experience under my belt I thought that maybe I would share some of the things I've learned with the newer people coming in. Keep in mind that these tips are my opinion only and should not be taken as gospel. This is just coming from my personal experience.
Tip 1: Slow and steady wins the race.
Generally when you sit down at a tourney table you will come across three players:
Player 1 - Betting the table minimum, seemingly biding his time until the last hand.
Player 2 - Betting slightly higher than the minimum hoping to slowly work his way up into a lead without risking too much.
Player 3 - Bet like a maniac right out of the gate and try to take an early lead.
Player one, in my opinion, has the right idea. I always like playing conservative to start mainly for the reason that if you try and peck your way at a lead with small but non-minimum bets you're really just betting for the sake of betting. In the end you'll balance yourself out and probably lose a little, if you want to take a lead you want to it be with one single big bet. Flat betting 30 in a 10-500 limit tourney doesn't really do much for you.
Player two is the guy who will spook you, though. He'll lead out with a big bet, and quite possibly take what seems like a big lead very early. After this happens usually one of two things will happen:
#1: They'll put it on cruise control and coast into the last five hands.
#2: They'll continue to bet like a crazy man and eventually come back down to earth.
This player can appear very threatening, but you should not let him deter you. As long as you can catch him within one hand you have nothing to worry about. Let him have the early lead, he still has to play out all the hands you do. There's no need to catch him early, just relax and make a play for him in the last five or ten hands.
Another advantage of betting small is that going into the home stretch of the last five or ten hands you will almost always be within striking distance. You won't be going into the lead very much but you will very rarely be so far out of it that you have no chance.
Tip 2: If you make a move for the lead, do it in a single hand.
This is gonna give you a great deal of stress, because it frequently requires a bet of half your bankroll or more, but in the long run you are far better off trying to take the lead in a single hand with a big bet than trying to chip away at the lead with a series of mid-level bets. Usually a trick I'll like to do it throw out half of my bankroll when I have a shot at the lead, even if I don't nessicarily need that much, because I personally like to have a little room to work with once I have a lead. If I lose I'll put out the rest of my money and hope to double up work my way back into the hunt, and if I win I'm in the lead, there's no other result, and no more hands I have to worry about, just one. This leads me to my next tip....
Tip 3: Pay attention to position.
I never like to make my move unless I'm the last to act. I'll usually wait until the second-to-last time the button passes me to make my move. As that lets me have a lead going into the end if I win but still give me a puncher's chance at survival should I lose. I never like to make a move if the button is on me and I'm the first to act. If the button is on me it's normally a minimum bet or a maximum bet.
Tip 4: Practice, practice, practice.
Bottom line it's the only way you will ever improve. If you don't feel like ponying up money every time for your tournament experience. I'd suggest in investing in some tournament software. Wong's Tournament Blackjack or Casino Verite Blackjack (version 3) are two of the best you can get and will allow you to practice strageties on computer opponents for free (well, minus the cost of the software). I would also suggest trying to gather some buddies and playing a tourney with actual people, as nothing beats the thought process, or the unpredictability of a real, live person.
Tip 5: Don't get discouraged
Tournaments are very difficult to win, there's no two ways about it, and you will lose a fairly large amount of them, and almost every one you lose you will be second guessing yourself. The most important thing is that you play every tournament to the best of your ability, if you can say to yourself "I lost but there was nothing I could do, I did the best I could" then you should be happy. Just because you didn't come away with a check doesn't mean you gained nothing from the experience. Go over the round in your head, and try to determine if you could have done anything better. If you couldn't, then hold your head high and go into next month with confidence. If you could, then learn from that mistake and come back with the weapon of that knowledge.
Well I hope this little schtick was helpful to someone, pros. Feel free to contradict everything I've said here as I'm sure you'd know better, but most importantly, more important than anything else. Have fun, after all, if you don't have fun while winning money, it's just like any other job, and regular jobs suck :joker:
- Scorcho
Tip 1: Slow and steady wins the race.
Generally when you sit down at a tourney table you will come across three players:
Player 1 - Betting the table minimum, seemingly biding his time until the last hand.
Player 2 - Betting slightly higher than the minimum hoping to slowly work his way up into a lead without risking too much.
Player 3 - Bet like a maniac right out of the gate and try to take an early lead.
Player one, in my opinion, has the right idea. I always like playing conservative to start mainly for the reason that if you try and peck your way at a lead with small but non-minimum bets you're really just betting for the sake of betting. In the end you'll balance yourself out and probably lose a little, if you want to take a lead you want to it be with one single big bet. Flat betting 30 in a 10-500 limit tourney doesn't really do much for you.
Player two is the guy who will spook you, though. He'll lead out with a big bet, and quite possibly take what seems like a big lead very early. After this happens usually one of two things will happen:
#1: They'll put it on cruise control and coast into the last five hands.
#2: They'll continue to bet like a crazy man and eventually come back down to earth.
This player can appear very threatening, but you should not let him deter you. As long as you can catch him within one hand you have nothing to worry about. Let him have the early lead, he still has to play out all the hands you do. There's no need to catch him early, just relax and make a play for him in the last five or ten hands.
Another advantage of betting small is that going into the home stretch of the last five or ten hands you will almost always be within striking distance. You won't be going into the lead very much but you will very rarely be so far out of it that you have no chance.
Tip 2: If you make a move for the lead, do it in a single hand.
This is gonna give you a great deal of stress, because it frequently requires a bet of half your bankroll or more, but in the long run you are far better off trying to take the lead in a single hand with a big bet than trying to chip away at the lead with a series of mid-level bets. Usually a trick I'll like to do it throw out half of my bankroll when I have a shot at the lead, even if I don't nessicarily need that much, because I personally like to have a little room to work with once I have a lead. If I lose I'll put out the rest of my money and hope to double up work my way back into the hunt, and if I win I'm in the lead, there's no other result, and no more hands I have to worry about, just one. This leads me to my next tip....
Tip 3: Pay attention to position.
I never like to make my move unless I'm the last to act. I'll usually wait until the second-to-last time the button passes me to make my move. As that lets me have a lead going into the end if I win but still give me a puncher's chance at survival should I lose. I never like to make a move if the button is on me and I'm the first to act. If the button is on me it's normally a minimum bet or a maximum bet.
Tip 4: Practice, practice, practice.
Bottom line it's the only way you will ever improve. If you don't feel like ponying up money every time for your tournament experience. I'd suggest in investing in some tournament software. Wong's Tournament Blackjack or Casino Verite Blackjack (version 3) are two of the best you can get and will allow you to practice strageties on computer opponents for free (well, minus the cost of the software). I would also suggest trying to gather some buddies and playing a tourney with actual people, as nothing beats the thought process, or the unpredictability of a real, live person.
Tip 5: Don't get discouraged
Tournaments are very difficult to win, there's no two ways about it, and you will lose a fairly large amount of them, and almost every one you lose you will be second guessing yourself. The most important thing is that you play every tournament to the best of your ability, if you can say to yourself "I lost but there was nothing I could do, I did the best I could" then you should be happy. Just because you didn't come away with a check doesn't mean you gained nothing from the experience. Go over the round in your head, and try to determine if you could have done anything better. If you couldn't, then hold your head high and go into next month with confidence. If you could, then learn from that mistake and come back with the weapon of that knowledge.
Well I hope this little schtick was helpful to someone, pros. Feel free to contradict everything I've said here as I'm sure you'd know better, but most importantly, more important than anything else. Have fun, after all, if you don't have fun while winning money, it's just like any other job, and regular jobs suck :joker:
- Scorcho
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