Installment #9:

Raise more often than you call

	No-limit hold’em is a bettor’s game, not a caller’s game. Anytime you make a bet, especially a large bet, you are putting your opponent to the test. Anytime your opponent makes a big bet at you, he is putting your back to the wall. It is much better to force your opponent to guess what you have and make a decision based on speculation than the other way around. Most of the time he will guess wrong. Many times you are faced with the decision to call another player’s bet, fold to his bet, or raise. Of these three options, calling is usually the worst. Many times it is a choice between folding or raising — and raising often is the best option. Players frequently raise with less than premium starting hands, but when faced with a reraise from a solid player like you, they will fold. Callers usually are losers in no-limit hold’em. Does that mean you always either raise or fold? Of course not. There are times when I think that my opponent is bluffing, so I simply call him down. If I’m wrong and he does have a strong hand, I will save money by not raising. If he is bluffing, he can’t call my raise anyway, so a call is my best play.

How to Win Hold’em Tournaments

	Tournament poker is the hottest ticket in town! No matter where you are in today’s poker world, you can easily find a tournament to enter. You can play a hold’em tournament on the Internet in your bathrobe with chips ‘n dip on your desk. Or you can walk into a casino, plunk down your money at the tournament registration desk, and get into the middle of some exciting hold’em action. Don’t feel like playing? Tune into one of the ever proliferating televised tournaments and vicariously feel the ecstasy of victory or the agony of defeat in the comfort of your living room. Casinos and Internet poker rooms offer several types of tournaments. Most low-limit casino tournaments are rebuy events. In a rebuy tournament you can buy more chips during the first three levels of play and you can make one final rebuy (an add-on) at the end of the rebuy period. Most high-stakes tournaments are freezeout events. In a freezeout tournament, you cannot buy more chips. When you have lost your starting stack of chips, you must give up your seat in the tournament. Another type of tournament is a satellite, a preliminary tournament that you can play to earn an entry into the main event. Satellites cost much less to enter than the main event and are an inexpensive way to buy in to a tournament that has a big entry fee. Most players who enter the World Series of Poker $10,000 championship tournament earn their buy-ins by winning a satellite that costs from $40 up to $1,000. Cash games are designed to keep players in the game – tournaments are designed to knock them out of the game. In a tournament, the contestants are gradually eliminated until one player has won all the chips. When you lose all your chips in a tournament, you’re out of the race. You also have to contend with continually escalating forced blind beds. If you never play a hand, you will eventually go broke just from paying the two blind bets that you are forced to post during each round of play. Unlike cash games where the blinds remain the same throughout the game, the blinds increase at regular intervals during a tournament. Each interval is called a “level,” during which the blinds remain constant for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, or whatever time frame the tournament sponsor has designated. When a new level begins, the blinds increase by 50 percent up to 100 percent, depending upon the structure of the tournament. A tournament’s structure includes the number of chips each player receives at the start of the event, the size of the blinds at the start of the tournament, whether rebuys are allowed, the length of each level, and the percentage of increase in the blinds from one level to the next. Some tournaments are structured to end quickly. For example, satellites are fast-moving tournament events with very short levels. Other tournaments with much longer levels of play – the World Series of Poker, World Poker Tour events, and the championship event in other major tournaments – are designed to last a long time in order to give players plenty of time to play. The tournament winner must win all the chips – but he doesn’t win all the money in the prize pool. The champion usually gets 37 to 40 percent of the prize pool, with second place earning 20 to 25 percent. The remaining finalists divide the rest of the money

Things you should know before you enter a tournament  

	·       How much is the buy-in? The buy-in is often $20 to $40 for low-limit casino tournaments. In addition to that, the casino usually charges an entry fee to cover the house expenses for running the tournament. The usual entry fee in low-limit tournaments is about 15 to 20 percent of the buy-in. Sometimes the entry fee is included in the buy-in amount, and is simply subtracted from the total prize pool of the tournament. ·       Is it a rebuy event or a freezeout? If you’re playing a freezeout event, you need only the amount of the entry fee plus the vig. If you’re playing a rebuy tournament, bring enough money with you to make several rebuys. ·       How much do rebuys and add-ons cost, and when can I make them? Any time you have fewer chips in your stack than you had in your starting stack, you can buy more chips, but only for a limited time. You usually can rebuy only during the first three levels of play (the rebuy period). At the end of the rebuy period, most rebuy events allow you to buy additional tournament chips (an add-on) for the same price you would pay for a rebuy.   ·       How many places are paid? The number of players who get paid usually depends on the number of entries. Small daily tournaments in hometown cardrooms might pay only the final three players, while others reward the last five players in action. Tournaments with 100 entries usually pay everyone at the last table, and larger events pay two or more tables. ·         How long are the betting rounds? In the majority of low-limit tournaments, the betting rounds (a “round” is another word used for “level”) are 20 minutes long, with a 15-minute break after the first hour of play. ·       How many chips will I receive to start with? The lower the amount of the buy-in, the fewer chips you usually receive in your starting stack. If you enter a $20 buy-in event, you often will be given $200 in tournament chips. In a $1,000 buy-in tournament, you might start with $2,000 in chips. ·       What are the blinds in the first round of play? In a low-limit tournament, the blinds often begin at $5-$10. The amount of the blinds in relation to the size of your starting stack of chips is an important indicator of how much “play” you will get for your money. Usually you want to receive at least 10 times the size of the big blind in your starting stack of chips.

Next Week's Installment #10

Study tournament strategy by reading good advice from experts

Play small tournaments to start with

Decide in advance whether to rebuy and add on