JV'S POKER ROOM

BY: John Vorhaus

As you no doubt know by now, successful poker strategy can be boiled down to these simple words: When you get the goods, bet the goods. In most situations, against most low-limit foes, it's enough just to wait for good cards and then push them as hard as you can.

In tournaments, though, that's not always the case.

In this column we'll look at some basic principles of tournament strategy, so that when you plunk down your $20 or $50 to play in your first one, you'll have more than a clue... you'll have a plan!

Your first consideration is the question of rebuys. If it's a rebuy tournament, where you can buy more chips during the first hour of play, you need to take this fact into account. Rebuy tournaments encourage loose, wild play early on, because players know that they can't go broke until after the rebuy period ends. With this in mind, you want to bluff less during the rebuy period, because you can't count on your opponents being too scared to call.

At the same time, take a moment to figure in the cost of the rebuys and decide in advance how many rebuys you plan to take (if any). If you go broke and rebuy too many times, you end up paying an aggregate "entry fee" far out of proportion to the potential prize money in the tournament. For instance, a $20 buy-in tournament could end up costing you $80 or $100 if you rebuy promiscuously. It's like a hidden cost to the tournament, and it should be considered in advance. If you find yourself rebuying several times in quick succession, it may be that you're just not on your game today, and should consider giving up the quest.

Most rebuy tournaments also offer something called an add-on. At the end of the rebuy period, every player can purchase more chips, no matter how many chips they already have. In almost all cases, you'll want to take this add-on, because the limits are going up all the time and you want to have as many bullets in your gun as possible. The only exception to this would be if you already won so many chips that the add-on would not significantly increase the size of your stack. If that's the situation you find yourself in, mazel tov! Save your add-on money and go win the tournament!

After the rebuy period ends, the texture of the tournament changes completely. From this point forward, players know, if they go broke, they go home. They can't replenish their stack, so every tournament chip becomes precious - and increasingly precious as the betting limits go up, up, up! These so-called middle rounds of a tournament are the time to try your bluffs, if you're bold, because players may be generally more afraid to call you down. They know that the price for guessing wrong is elimination from the tournament.

At the same time, you don't want to get too frisky with your bluffs that players get wise to you and start playing back at you. Remember that tournament chips are valuable to you too - precious, in fact. You should think long and hard before getting involved with any hand, especially when it reaches the point where any single hand could cost you most or all of your tournament chips. The middle rounds are a time to play selectively aggressively. Bluff against weak-tight players, but don't feel like you have to play sheriff when a strong player tries to run over you.

From the middle to the end of the tournament, your stack will fall into one of three categories: small, medium, large. If you have a small stack, you want to avoid confrontations with big stacks, because their chips are proportionally much less valuable to them than yours are to you. They can, in short, afford to take chances that you can't afford to take. Sometimes you get so short-stacked that you simply have to take a stand with anything. Then just push your chips into the middle and hope for the best.

If you have a medium-sized stack, you want to try to pick on the short stacks and, again, avoid confrontations with the big ones. Only play premium hands, except when steal opportunities present themselves. Try not to get out of line. If you're not in immediate danger of going broke, you don't have to get involved with reckless adventures. You can afford to wait for good cards, and that's basically what you should do.

If you have a big stack, then you get to play bully. Sometimes, the mere fact of your overwhelming numerical superiority means that other players, the small and medium stacks, can't call you even if they've got good cards. They simply can't afford to go to war, while they know that you can. So your job as big stack is to play especially aggressively against short-stacked players, and try to bust them out. Avoid confrontations with other big stacks. There will be time enough for that when the final table comes.

Poker tournaments generally pay most of their money to the top three places, so that's where you want to be. While it's nice to finish "in the money" in any case, if all your seventh-place finish nets you is the price of your original investment back, you'll have put in a lot of time at the poker table for not a lot of payback. Be in it to win it! Go big or go home.

There are plenty of excellent books on tournament poker, including Tournament Poker by Tom McEvoy and Poker Tournament Tips from the Pros by Shane Smith. Both books, along with others, and also Wilson Software's excellent Tournament Texas Hold'em tournament simulator, are available at gaming bookstores or online through sites such as www.gamblersbook.com.

Poker tournaments give you an extraordinary amount of bang for your gaming buck. Try your hand at one today!