Tournament Poker: Change Up Your Strategy
by Bodog Poker | Mar 12 2009
Tournament poker has lots of different strategies to follow during certain stages of the event. How you play at each stage is dependent on the stack sizes, blind levels, and playing styles of your opponents. We try to adjust to what’s transpired and play each player with their playing style in mind. Good poker players remember what each player is capable of so they can better create a range of possible hands their opponents could be playing. And that means that good players are making the same assumptions about you and your play.
That’s why it’s important to change up your strategy during certain stages of a tournament. Good players will create a table image of you, and if you don’t want to be a sitting duck, you’ll have to approach hands in a different manner than you usually would. You do this for numerous reasons, none as important as making your opponents realize that you’re capable of doing things they didn’t think you were capable of. It makes good players know that you are not predicable and that you’ll purposely create false betting patterns and fake tells to throw them off their assumptions of you.
Sometimes changing your style is the best thing to do because the tempo of the game has changed. If a table was running loose and most of those players have been eliminated, the tempo of the game may have become tight. Switching to an aggressive style when the rest of table is playing tight will most often be a profitable adjustment. The reverse goes for a table that suddenly has loosened up due to the addition of one or more new players that like to play lots of hands.
Other times the blind levels and stack sizes force us to play a different style than we would normally play. Don’t sit and play a normal game if your stack is getting too low. You have to get in there and play more aggressively to win blinds or double up. The same goes for when the table is getting short and there are only a couple of you left in play.
Changing up your style is something you want to do before it’s too late. Try to predict when certain opponents might be thinking that they have your playing habits down. If you can stay one step ahead of them it won’t take long for them to shy away from you as much as they can afford to. There are often signs of an opponent who’s trying to “look you up”. If you can realize what they’re looking for, you can represent that when you in fact have something else.
Playing the same way all the time is like showing your cards to the good players. They’ll know what you have most times because you tell them with your bet sizes and physical actions. Try to make an effort to play hands differently that you’re likely to show at showdown. Then the good players will know that you could be holding anything when you make your moves on the table.
Get the upper hand on your poker game with Bodog’s guide to observing your opponents.
