Whatever your Texas Hold Em Tournament Strategy is I hope it incorporates playing some hands. Generally, and I’m just throwing this out there, you need to play hands to win pots. Rarely you can raise big and have everyone fold but most of the time you actually have to play hands to win more chips. Playing hands to win more chips to grow your stack is a great way to put pressure on your opponents.
When you play hands to win more chips you want to win more not necessarily win all the chips in the pot but more importantly win more during the hand. Playing hands to win more chips and growing your stack in a poker tournament is one of the best methods of winning. Growing you stack in a tournament is one of the best methods of winning because once you get to the top of the game so does the size of your stack.
You need to play a wide variety of cards during a poker tournament. You need connectors, high cards, low cards, pocket pairs, and combinations of all those different hand combinations. The best way to get a handle on the variety of hands you’ll be coming across is to have a hand list of the roughly 100-120 hands that many of the best players in the world play during a poker tournament.
That list is usually called the “player list.” The player list is usually printed on a piece of paper and includes the number of players, the name of the poker tournament, the name of the poker room, and the stakes used. Most tournaments start with 2 to 4 poker players and have 4 to 8 poker players in the tournament. A poker tournament may be online or offline. Usually you’ll be playing in multiple poker rooms during the poker tournament.
When you’re playing online most poker rooms have a download poker client that you can use. Some poker rooms have a no download version of the software. Either way when you’re downloading the software you’ll be able to open the game up and you’ll be able to click on your favorite poker rooms just like you would on the internet. Your poker face is actually a very important part of the poker game; people will be able to tell whether you have a good or bad hand by how you bid, if you hesitate or if you act quickly.
When you play any poker game whether it’s online or offline you should make sure you always follow proper etiquette. You don’t want the dealer to feel influenced and start to play hands unfairly. Improper etiquette can cost you a lot. The player list that you keep will be your “poker hands.” Keep this list in mind and pay attention to it often.
Players are often knocked out at the correct hand, or at the appropriate time. When you’re playing online poker the game is a little bit simpler than if you’re playing in real life. You can’t see how much you have bet, so you have to keep an eye on the computer screen to keep track of the time. If you have the time and ability to keep up with the hands that have been played you’ll grow to be a good poker player.
You don’t have to play every hand, you won’t win every hand. But you should play enough hands to allow yourself to win more than you lose. You only make money when you have winning hands, so you should play enough hands to ensure that you’re profitable. It’s true that you can get into the money in many hands, but you can’t win every hand or make a big score.
Online poker is trickier than a live game for a couple of reasons. You can’t see the other players and observe what they’re doing. You can’t hand-eye the other players. You can only watch the betting and see what the flop brings. In a live game the players are busy watching each other and watching the dealers. In internet poker you can watch what the players are doing, but they’re not paying attention to what you’re doing.
Because of the nature of the internet game you can play a lot of poker and not be able to see the other players. Some internet players are excellent “sitters” and wait until the nuts or best hand is available before jumping into the action, but in any other game they would jump right in. Also, playing online affords you the time you would take for your own decisions rather than the actions of other players.
These are the two biggest reasons why I love playing online poker. I love the pace because I don’t have to wait for other players to act and play their hand. Also, nothing can be a better “poker face” than not having one at all. It really helps to not have to look at your cards when you’re playing internet poker.