Quick Tournament Strategy

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

I get a lot of calls and emails these days from poker players asking for my advice. I may not be a major tournament pro, but I guess at the very least I'm available for inquiries. I enjoy helping and give advice freely. Some of the questioners stick around with me for a while and take lessons. So I've accumulated quite a few poker questions and answers over the past year.

This question came from my high school poker buddy Frank who now lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I've seen him three or four times since we graduated nearly 30 years ago. He hasn't played since we were 18 year old seniors in high school.

I introduced him and our poker high school poker crew to Texas Hold Em back in 1974 -- when it was first achieving widespread recognition. It was a relatively new game back then. Amarillo Slim Preston had been making the rounds with his recent WSOP championship as an excuse to drum up business in the game and his book.

My friend had just discovered a no limit hold em tournament was going off at his nearby bar. He drinks a lot, works hardly at all, and so has little extra cash. But this bar was offering a freeroll. So he couldn't resist.

He was calling me to get a basic strategy for the game -- to make it more interesting for him. Even though there was no cash involved, the winner would get a trip to Las Vegas and entry into some major tournament in the Fall. The bar had been charging $25 a head but the local constabulary told them that the only way they could have a poker tournament would be if it were free. So they dropped the charge and my friend got in gratis.

Oh, one other thing. He had to go to the tournament in 15 minutes!

So I had 15 minutes to offer him advice about how to play his first No Limit Poker Tournament. A nice challenge for me!

Before I give you the advice I gave him -- and the results of the tournament -- let me tell you a little about the structure of the event.

As I said, it was a no limit hold em poker tournament. All players started with 40 chips. The blinds started at $1/2 and doubled every half hour. They were playing a shoot-out, with each table having one winner who would go on to the finals in a week.

The players were, my friend told me, almost all relatively new to the game -- regulars at the bar but not very experienced at playing poker. There may have been a few guys who had played in casinos or in serious home games, but most of these folks, he assured me, were pretty new to no limit hold em -- though not as new as he since he had NEVER played.

So here's what I told him.

I explained position very simply. First two seats were blinds, next three were early position, next three were middle position, and next two were late position.

In early position fold everything that isn't Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks or A-K. Raise by four times the big blind with them -- making it 10 to go if the Big Blind is 2. Aggressive I know, especially with a no rebuy tournament with only 40 chips.

In middle position add pairs down to 8s and A-Q suited. In late position add any pair and A suited all the way down to A-2. In middle and late position I told him that he should not call anyone else's bet or raise unless he had Aces or Kings. If he did he should raise all in.

It took him a few minutes of discussion for him to get this. But he did and wrote it down.

After the flop I told him to fit or fold. Specifically, I said that if he still had a pair higher than the high card on the board he should bet four times or so whatever he bet before -- which might make him all in. Otherwise, if he didn't have the high pair or if he didn't make trips or some miracle flush, he should check. And if someone else bet he should fold. I told him that if he made trips and someone bet in front of him he should raise all in.

I did not tell him what to do on the River except to play solid poker and be afraid of the nuts. I explained what the nuts were.

I added that he shouldn't bluff at all -- at least until it got down to very short handed and then only very selectively.

And that was about it.

My friend called me on my cell phone at 8AM -- which was very unusual for him. He typically sleeps until 1PM or so. He wanted to tell me what happened. I called him back a few minutes later for the complete report.

First of all, he had been up all night. His was the last of 10 tables to finish up the tournament. Turns out that the winners of each of the tables play in a final next week -- and the final winner gets the trip to Las Vegas.

My friend won his table. He was giddy and giggling with excitement. He said, "Ashley, I don't know what I did -- but it was amazing. Everyone was pissed at me because I was drunk, appeared not to know how to play the game, looked at a sheet the whole time about how to play, and then won nearly every hand that I was in." The other players never noticed how tightly he played. They nearly always called him when he bet. And his hands held up. He'd laugh girlishly about it while drinking and his opponents got really steamed. Being inexperienced, he often couldn't follow the action of the hand or keep track of the blind bets. This further angered his opponents -- as you can well imagine.

Oh, one other tidbit of the story. Near the end, when his opponent had a chip lead, my friend (who had sobered up quite a bit because he couldn't get the waitress to get him another beer) decided to attempt his one bluff of the night. His opponent bet a good chunk of his stack. My friend paused for a long time and then pushed in his entire stack. His opponent thought a long time and finally folded. My friend, giggling madly, turned over 2-5 off suit. His opponent blew a gasket, stormed away from the table , and came back on full blown tilt.

The bottom line seemed to be that the strategy I devised, outrageously simple though it was, plus some excellent luck, seemed to propel my friend to victory. I guess that the moral of the story is that a simple tight/aggressive strategy is a good one to follow among inexperienced players -- especially when your demeanor is such that folks assume you absolutely don't have a clue.

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