Make money or go for a first place?

mattlessingerIn a tournament, once you close the scholarships, you often the choice between these two strategies...
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In a tournament, once you close the scholarships, you often the choice between these two strategies:

  • You can play conservatively and wait for your opponents to eliminate them. By doing this, you have very good chances to finish in scholarships. But unless you obtain a very good series of maps, you'll probably be short stack once in scholarships. In addition, your chances to win the tournament or finish in the top three will be very thin.

  • You can play very aggressively with the aim of forcing tokens. You will take greater risks obviously to be out of the tournament before the awards. But if you manage to survive, not only you will have a scholarship, but in addition, you won't be far from the chip leader. So, you'll have an excellent chance of finishing in the top three.

What strategy is best?

It is primarily a matter of personal choice. Want to make money more often or finish with a better scholarship when you are in silver?

I'm more a fan of the second choice. If you enter a tournament, your goal should be to win this tournament and not only earn a small purse. How are structured the majority of tournaments, win a tournament pays more to finish 10th in 15 tournaments. You can take satisfaction of being a constant fellow in tournaments, but poker is a game of money and not pride. And most significant scholarships are often awarded to the top three positions. You can't really be a winning tournament player if you do not occasionally end in too 3.

Other hand, a point of seen personal, I don't feel not quite packed if I have dust of scholarships. After all, I don't join in a tournament simply to double my money. If it was what I wanted to do, I would have more luck at the tables. I enter a tournament to turn $ 10 into $ 1000 or $ 100 in $ 10,000. To have the chance to do that, I have to take my best chance to win a big pot even if it means running the risk of not finishing in scholarships. For this reason, I always played aggressively in the final stages of tournaments, and in general, it was worth it.

The difficulty of keeping focus when playing online

Tournaments online, it is extremely easy to fall into the trap by playing conservatively or in survival mode. All the poker websites offer a lobby giving the vital status of each player with a multitude of statistics that you can't get to your local poker club. The lobby tells you exactly how many players remain at any time with the exact number of their chips. You always know exactly what place you occupy and how many players it remains to eliminate before being in scholarships.

Contrary to this, your local poker club where you play some tournaments, gives you all this information. You see players walk between the tables, and watch their opponents. They assess how many tokens have each player and try to guess who is in danger. But they can not constantly walk to know this information because they have hands to play.

But online tournaments are completely different. While you play at your table, you can open the other tables in the tournament to see how will the other players. You can keep an eye on players who are particularly short stacks and see exactly how many hands they have to play before you pay the blinds. In short, you can know everything there is to know about your position in a tournament and by the same token, if you close access to scholarships.

In addition, most sites fall mode hand-for-hand (all tables must have completed their current hand until another table can start a new) when you are near the awards. It is their way to say: 'Hey, in case you have not noticed, there are almost, so you do not stupid game. What usually happens is that each player is in defensive mode, until the short stacks fell in battle. Between the curricula of hand-for-hand, you can easily watch the poor opponents in chips to other tables and all information available on the lobby are there, tailor-made for the player who wants access to small grants.

Be different!

While everyone plays in survival mode, be aggressive. There is no better time to accumulate chips in the final stages of a tournament, when everyone tries not to be the last player to not be paid. Your task is to go against the trend by playing aggressive while the other players will be passive.

Many of them use the tools available to them to know how close they are to Access Scholarships. You can use these same tools, but be sure to use them properly. Instead of thinking in terms of "how closely are you scholarships" think about "how each player is almost Awards". Make sure to bet often and raiser as often in order to keep the pressure on your opponents. Whenever you bet, your opponent must be worried with your bet. It should say that if he doesn't win this hand, he will be probably out of the tournament before scholarships. You two have this concern, but by taking the initiative, you take advantage over him.

Of course, you can always be unlucky. If your opponent has a strong enough hand to you caller, you'll probably be one who will be eliminated. You will likely end on the bubble (near scholarships). But you can't let that little detail scare you. You can finish first without a few times, be eliminated on the bubble. This happens to every player, even the greatest champions of tournaments. In the short term, it is a very unpleasant feeling. But you can reassure you by saying that you have a solid, long-term plan that will earn you. And when you get a first position, all the times where you are out on the bubble will no longer only bad memories.

Make sure you take advantage of every information that you have on the tournament lobby. And use them not only to survive but to finish first.