Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 by Jonathan Little Page B
Authors: Jonathan Little
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don’t have to make larger bets. But it’s an option. It’s well worth the risk of raising by 0.3BB more before the flop to give yourself many more options throughout the hand. Because you are raising to a slightly larger amount pre-flop, you should tighten your range a bit. You need to win a higher percentage of pots pre-flop because you’re giving yourself slightly worse odds to steal the blinds. This is usually negligible though, as the extra 0.3BB you raise over a normal small-ball strategy will win the blinds a higher percentage of the time.
All winning poker players are aggressive. If you take the passive route on most hands, you will find yourself losing money. If a winning player thinks a play is profitable, he will make the play. In fact, not making aggressive plays that you know you should make is similar to burning money. In order to take home first prize, unless you get a great run of cards, you are going to have to take some risks. The best way to take risks is to be aggressive. This will give you a chance to play some big pots, and pick up numerous small pots along the way.
Small ball does have its flaws, the primary one being that it is tough to get all-in with a strong hand. My slightly modified small-ball strategy will get all the money in whenever you want to while still getting the action that eludes the long-ball player.
Section 2
Playing Deep Stacked (125BB+)
Chapter 3
Introduction
Poker appears fairly simple, but it just might be the most complicated game ever invented because it involves both math and psychology to varying degrees, depending on the hand. The next section will teach you pretty much everything you need to know to win in today’s tournaments. Of course, everyone’s general strategy could change, making the material less relevant in the distant future. You must be able to change with the times. Numerous older players, who used to be the biggest winners in the game, now just scrape by because they’ve failed to adjust.
The next section will teach you how to play based on your stack size. You should play A-Jwith 125BBs much differently than with 10BBs. I will explain how to play with several ranges of stack sizes: more than 125BBs, 60 to 125BBs, 40 to 60BBs, 27 to 40BBs, 6 to 12BBs and less than 5BBs. Techniques used with the biggest stacks often apply when you are shorter. I will note when this is the case.
I will be speak in terms of big blinds when referring to stack sizes throughout this book. Some authors list your stack size in the number of orbits before you blind off. I think this makes things too difficult for no reason. I can’t remember the last time I blinded off in a tournament. If you play as I suggest, neither will you. There will be little mention of playing with antes until I get to the short-stacked section. If you are deep-stacked with antes in play, simply raise a few more hands pre-flop than I suggest. I am a firm believer in making things simple. You will find that to be the case throughout this book. I do not address short-handed or heads-up play in this section. These will be addressed in the Stages of a Tournament section in Volume 2. Finally, I do not take prize payouts into consideration in this section. This section assumes you are not close to the money in a tournament.
Your stack size is one of the most important factors besides your cards. If you fail to adjust to everyone’s stack sizes, you are guaranteed to fail at tournament poker. Because of this, the next section will be quite long. I suggest you read and reread this material, as I will teach you how to play technically sound poker.
Playing Very Deep
For simplicity, I am going to assume you are very deep-stacked when most players at the table, including yourself, have over 125 big blinds. This may seem like an extraordinarily deep-stacked tournament to an online player, where most tournaments start you with less than 100 big blinds, but large
All winning poker players are aggressive. If you take the passive route on most hands, you will find yourself losing money. If a winning player thinks a play is profitable, he will make the play. In fact, not making aggressive plays that you know you should make is similar to burning money. In order to take home first prize, unless you get a great run of cards, you are going to have to take some risks. The best way to take risks is to be aggressive. This will give you a chance to play some big pots, and pick up numerous small pots along the way.
Small ball does have its flaws, the primary one being that it is tough to get all-in with a strong hand. My slightly modified small-ball strategy will get all the money in whenever you want to while still getting the action that eludes the long-ball player.
Section 2
Playing Deep Stacked (125BB+)
Chapter 3
Introduction
Poker appears fairly simple, but it just might be the most complicated game ever invented because it involves both math and psychology to varying degrees, depending on the hand. The next section will teach you pretty much everything you need to know to win in today’s tournaments. Of course, everyone’s general strategy could change, making the material less relevant in the distant future. You must be able to change with the times. Numerous older players, who used to be the biggest winners in the game, now just scrape by because they’ve failed to adjust.
The next section will teach you how to play based on your stack size. You should play A-Jwith 125BBs much differently than with 10BBs. I will explain how to play with several ranges of stack sizes: more than 125BBs, 60 to 125BBs, 40 to 60BBs, 27 to 40BBs, 6 to 12BBs and less than 5BBs. Techniques used with the biggest stacks often apply when you are shorter. I will note when this is the case.
I will be speak in terms of big blinds when referring to stack sizes throughout this book. Some authors list your stack size in the number of orbits before you blind off. I think this makes things too difficult for no reason. I can’t remember the last time I blinded off in a tournament. If you play as I suggest, neither will you. There will be little mention of playing with antes until I get to the short-stacked section. If you are deep-stacked with antes in play, simply raise a few more hands pre-flop than I suggest. I am a firm believer in making things simple. You will find that to be the case throughout this book. I do not address short-handed or heads-up play in this section. These will be addressed in the Stages of a Tournament section in Volume 2. Finally, I do not take prize payouts into consideration in this section. This section assumes you are not close to the money in a tournament.
Your stack size is one of the most important factors besides your cards. If you fail to adjust to everyone’s stack sizes, you are guaranteed to fail at tournament poker. Because of this, the next section will be quite long. I suggest you read and reread this material, as I will teach you how to play technically sound poker.
Playing Very Deep
For simplicity, I am going to assume you are very deep-stacked when most players at the table, including yourself, have over 125 big blinds. This may seem like an extraordinarily deep-stacked tournament to an online player, where most tournaments start you with less than 100 big blinds, but large
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