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No-Limit Texas Hold'em Tournament Strategy | Part 2 of the Tourneys vs. Playing For Cash

Part 2 of the Tourneys vs. Playing For Cash

Your chips are your child

The most significant difference between a cash game and a tournament is the value represented by a chip. In cash plays, you have the privilege to be liberal when it comes to your chips. Most of the ideas of cash games are created assuming that the player has the ways and options of how you can refill your stacks.

Implied odds are a great example: it is rather profitable to cash in on a pot in cash games when you are playing in a hand where you have very low chances of winning. Cashing on the pot can prove to be very profitable when you have 15% chance of winning, but stand a chance of bagging hundred times more to your investment with a hit.

It is possible to miss and lose most of the time. When it comes to tournaments, the inability to fill up on stacks will render the above move as poor. This is because every single chip in a tournament game is a great representative of your life at the tournament.

The styles of play  

In order to succeed at tourneys, you are required to be more conservative when it comes to your chips. The only way to play in a tournament game is by being the tight and aggressive player. You are guaranteed to see the heads up if you manage to steal blinds every round and avoid playing another hand. As from the scenario above, it is more important to lose less and win more in a tournament as compared to cash games.

The flipping of coins

It is not advisable to look for coin flips in a cash game. The main reason you play poker is to find the possibility of putting in money when you have the highest possibility of winning. In cash games, you are more privileged as the games are long, this way you can look for a better spot to cash in that expect a coin flip. The only time you ought to take the flip of a coin is when you want to manipulate your image at the table.

This is essential as it will give the other players the assumption that you are more willing to coin flip at any time and they will try and make big moves during pre flop.

When it comes to tournaments you have to be ready to take a number of coin flips as you head to the final. The moderate type of play in tournaments is adjusting aggression as well as the requirements of the hand together with your stacks ratio to the total blinds.

In such a case, you can get away with tight play at the tournament early stages while hoping to find large hands. In case you do not get the large hands, you are forced to get a hand that you can push the pre flop with.

There are a few players who will play their games backwards. This is when they prefer to have the coin flips in the initial stages of the tournament. This ensures that they finish in the same way in case they lost the flip now or in the later stages.

In the event that he wins the flip, he will work hard to ensure that they have substantial chips to be free from the push or fold mode. If you find it easy to play tight when there is the most of the range is playing push or fold, it will be possible for you to make proper timing on when to pick up stacks and pick off players.

There are no right ways to play the tournament; you can try the standard or backward approach to success.

Playing the bubble  

The bubble refers to the time in the tournament when there are one or a few players who are required to bust before the money is made by the remaining players. In a large tournament where the large fields are they who fear being knocked out before they make the money, you find that the tournament dynamics will change significantly as it approaches the bubble as well as after the bubble bursts.

It is very possible for most of the field to rock up completely once it gets to the bubble. It is also possible to get zero players who are willing to take part in a coin flip at the bubble; this is with exception of possible elimination when they fail to take the coin flip.

For that reason, the experienced players will use this opportunity to stack up. In case there isn't any player with enough guts to call large bets, you need to ensure you pick the most blinds every round all through to the end of the bubble.

Poker games are supposed to be fun for any player. Beginners are likely to enjoy tournament games more than they would cash games.

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