Survival Skills in No Limit Holdem Tournaments

Of all the skills a tournament poker player can possess, the ability to survive is the one that is by far the most profitable. After all, tournaments don’t give the prize money to the players with the most skill…they give it to the players who merely survive.

Most people understand this concept, and employ tactics that best fit their personality to try and achieve it.

Folding your way to the final table?

Early on in my poker career, I played extremely tight. So tight in fact that sometimes an hour or two would go by without me entering a single hand. While this didn’t do much for my cash game results, I did have some early success in no limit tournaments. My friends would constantly poke fun at my play, often remarking that I had “folded my way to the final table”.

While I’ve learned since then that this certainly isn’t the best strategy to employ, it demonstrates that even the weakest of players have a redeeming skill necessary for tournament play…the ability to survive by allowing others to make mistakes against one another.

Often times, you will see these players have one of two fates. They will be blinded out somewhere just before the bubble (most common), or they will somehow squeak into the money, only to be whittled down by a final table full of solid tight-aggressive players.

Double up or die!

On the other side of the world from the tight players are the people who employ a “double up or die” mentality. These are the ones that feel the need to push early and often with most hands, simply because they feel that they need to accumulate as many chips as possible before the blinds rise.

Often times, you’ll see these players having one of two fates. They are either going out in the first half hour, or they are sitting at the final table. Once there, they are quite often beaten down by solid tight-aggressive players.

Again, these types of players demonstrate that even a weakness (playing way too many hands) can be viewed as a strength in no limit tournaments…the ability to survive by accumulating chips.

Finding the right formula

While each of the above mentioned survival tactics will succeed from time to time, they are certainly not the best strategy to employ.

The reason for this is that it takes quite a bit of luck for one of these strategies to actually work. The tight player must double up whenever they get good cards, and the aggressive player must win a disproportionate number of races that he enters.

So which one is the better formula? To be successful in no limit tournaments you must employ the tactics of both players. There are times in a tournament when sitting on your hands is the best option. But there are also times when playing a bit more loose is the better strategy. There are no hard and fast rules for this. It is 100% table feel. If players are playing too loose, be more inclined to sit back and watch. If they are playing too tightly, loosen up a bit and start stealing their blinds.

Final thoughts

In the end, surviving is the key to making money in no limit Holdem tournaments. Don’t place too much emphasis on making the best moves, or showing down the coolest bluffs. Tournaments don’t reward the players who make the bluff of the day; they reward those who are merely sitting in the money. Start focusing your attention on how you can live through another round of blinds, and you’ll find yourself sitting there more often than you used to.

LearnHowToPlayPoker.org