Three common poker tournament scenarios

Strategies for tournament poker can often be more generalized than those for cash games, especially in the later stages of a tournament, but there are also situations in poker tournaments where the right play can be quite clouded, with numerous different approaches that can be taken. In this column I will outline three of these scenarios, and why they are so difficult to play.

Situation #1: When the blinds don’t matter

The first situation occurs when the tournament just begins and the blinds are inconsequential. Typically you are quite happy with taking down the blinds with a late position raise, but when you have 5,000 chips and the blinds are 25/50 picking up 75 chips really doesn’t change things to the point that it matters.

There are two ways to handle this situation:

• 1. If you feel you are a solid post-flop player you can just make standard raises and outplay your opponents post-flop.
• 2. If you feel you are not a strong post-flop player you may want to overbet pre-flop to cut down on your opponents implied odds.

Situation #2: Dealing with a reraising stack in the big blind

Another big problem you may run into is when the blinds are somewhat short-stacked but not to the point of being desperate. In these cases the blinds have what is known as a reraising stack, a stack that can push all-in over the top of a raise from a steal position without being a huge overbet, but is large enough to make calling incorrect without a powerhouse hand.

The best way to handle this situation depends on the stack. You can either make a very small steal raise if your opponent’s stack is a bit larger (say 15bb+) which would make an all-in push a massive overbet, or if your opponent’s stack  is shorter (say 11BB) you can raise 4x the blind so you’re getting better odds to call against his range.

Situation #3:  Dealing with a Big Stack to your immediate left

This is a situation that mainly occurs at or near the bubble when you would like to attack the blinds but the highly active chip-leader is in between you and your potential targets. Typically this situation occurs when you have a good stack and the bubble players are both short and basically waiting for the other to bust. The problem you are confronted with is that the big-stack is essentially blocking you from using aggression, since if he comes over the top you will be forced to fold and one or two of those and you may find yourself in the same situation as the short-stacks.