Bob Ciaffone

Feb. 26, 2001

Tournament Psychology
Common psychological errors made in tournament play

Many poker players perform well below their technical ability when playing in a tournament. More money and more prestige are at stake in a large tournament than in all but the biggest money games. This leads to more pressure.

Speaking for myself, I have played a tournament pot with a seven-figure amount in it, and a great many in six figures. But in money games, only perhaps a dozen pots I've played have been as much as five figures. I am sure that most of you also have greatly disparate sums in these two departments.

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Bob Ciaffone

Apr. 13, 2001

Psychology of Tournament Play

Playing in a poker tournament has some clear differences in psychology from the typical money game setting. I think it is profitable to talk about those differences, both to avoid certain pitfalls yourself and take advantage of weaknesses in others. The importance of the mental side of tournament play is not to be discounted.

When I enter a poker tournament, I am there for the money. I do not care how long I last. I do not care how many or how few scalps I collect. In my opinion, any attitude other than being there for the money is a hindrance to doing your best. There are lots of reasons to play in a poker tournament, but only one is valid: to get the money.

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Matt Lessinger
Oct. 22, 2004

Playing the Percentages:
No-Limit Hold'em Tournament Advice?

Televised poker usually shows the percentage chance of winning next to each hand. When people see those percentages, they are often surprised that the "underdog" hand has a better chance of winning than they thought. That information can have a large impact on your playing strategies. My last column dealt with no-limit hold'em cash games, so today I will address No-limit Hold'em tournaments, with three things I suggest you don't do.

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Mike Sexton
Feb. 11, 2005

Tournament Tips

Tournament poker has taken the country by storm. Tournaments are fun, exciting, and challenging, and they enable us to fulfill our competitive instincts. The multimillion-dollar prize pools we see weekly on the World Poker Tour are attractive to the players who enter and the TV viewers. Whether you're an amateur or a professional, if you're at all serious about poker, chances are that you want to be at the final table of a WPT event, with a chance to compete for millions of dollars and prove your mettle as a player.

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Andrew N.S. Glazer
May 12, 2004

Three Big Mistakes Made by Tournament Novices

Thanks in no small part to what television has meant for poker in the last year, tournaments have never been as popular as they are now. The prize pools have grown so large that even many good money players who used to shun tournaments, fearing that their profitable anonymity might vanish, have decided the money is too big to ignore, and the ancillary benefits - matters such as endorsements - are now potentially huge.

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Brandon Adams
Sept 2006

Tournament Tactics

When I first started playing tournament poker, I tended to bust near the bubble. I would play very tight in the early stages, and then as the blinds and antes rose, I’d wait for good hands and push in. This frequently resulted in me busting with good but not great hands, such as A-Jo or T-T.

Busting with a hand like a pair of tens near the bubble is, in some ways, a respectable thing to do. When your friends ask you how you busted, you can say, “I was short-stacked and I reraised all in for twelve big blinds with a pair of tens,” and they will say, “Oh, well. You had to push there.” They’d be right, and in my early days I’d take some consolation in their assurances that my bustout was unavoidable. But after a while, I started to ask myself, “Why’d I only have twelve big blinds at that point?”

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Brett ‘gank’ Jungblut
Oct 07, 2008

The Art of Misinformation

As simple as the rules may be in poker, the game itself is amazingly complex. Most of its complexity is a result of the fact that it is a game of imperfect information – although you know your opponents actions, you do not know what his actual hole cards are. Things become even more intricate as players apply psychology. Poker’s basis on imperfect information is what separates it from other games such as chess and even backgammon, because in those games both opponents have the same information and decisions are much less about the psychology of the game than they are about the strategy and math aspects. Since we can’t see our opponent’s hole cards, we as players are constantly looking for reads and tells from our opponents as to what they might be holding in a particular hand. Based on our previous experiences with the player and their actions during the hand, we attempt to determine their hand “range”, or what possible hands they could be holding. For poker’s top players, an opponent’s perceived range is constantly changing based on the information they gather. At the same time, these players try to manipulate their opponents into thinking that their own range is much bigger or smaller than it actually is, depending on the current situation. These players try to sell a story with their betting amounts, physical actions, and overall demeanor in an attempt to trick their opponents into making wrong assumptions, which, in turn, leads to more errors by their opponents.

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Tom McEvoy
May 03, 2005

Betting the Wrong Amount in No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments

Lots of tournament players play their "A" games for an hour or so - until they can't stand it any longer. "There are a lot of players in tournaments who don't have an 'A' game," T.J. Cloutier stated. "In the long run, the weaker players are going to make calls and plays that are so far out of line that they don't have a chance to win the tournament." In simple terms, the player who makes the fewest mistakes in no-limit Texas hold'em is the one who makes the most money.

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