Poker Tournament - Multi Table Tournament Strategy
The multi-table tournament represents the most popular and definitely most televised style of poker play. The World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour, among many others come immediately to mind. An interesting development recently shows the majority of World Series of Poker tournament players now earn their entry to the event through online qualifying tournaments. Chris Moneymaker (2003) and Greg Raymer (2004) both earned their buy in’s to the World Series of Poker at Poker Stars and went on to win millions of dollars, and now represent Poker Stars to the world! The structure of these tournaments is quite simple. For a “buy in,” or set amount, players are entered into the tournament. Every player is then given the same number of chips and seated at as many tables as are necessary, and the elimination begins. When a player “busts out,” he leaves his seat, and remaining players are moved around to ensure equal numbers at each table. As you can imagine, this takes hours and even days to complete large multi-table tournaments.
All of this concentration, work and drama, for what? Only the top few finishers will earn money. If the tourney pays top 10 finishers, and you finish #11, tough luck. For many players who have had great success in regular ring games, the multi-table tournament is a cruel effigy of failure. This can be directly traced to the fact that most players do not grasp the changes needed from their ring game style to a tournament style. Consider some examples:
You hold Ax suited in a regular ring game. Your course of action would probably be to call at least one, possible two bets, and even raise in late position, if everyone has folded in front of you. On the other hand, what to do with Ax suited in the early stages of a multi-table tournament? Almost without fail, tournament experts will tell you to dump those cards without wasting a single bet.
How about QJ offsuit? In ring play, I probably wouldn’t give this hand the time of day. However, at the final table of a multi-table tournament, this can represent a very playable hand! We do indeed have a riddle, and in the following, the riddle explained.
Lets begin by breaking the multi-table tournament into three periods: Early, Middle and Final Tables. Early tournament play would obviously be the very beginning of the tournament, and characterized by lots and lots of fish and suckers. The middle time period will be after almost all of the fish have busted out, except for a lucky few, and the remaining players are fair to excellent poker players. The final tables then would be represented by excellent players, and maybe, just maybe, some fool whose on a hot streak, or a fair player whose having a good day.
As you can tell, this is not an exact science. You really can’t put a number on when you move from early to middle and even to final tables. It all depends on the nature of the tournament. In a tourney filled with great players, you may be into middle play very early. In a loose tournament, the final tables, may not come until the last 15-20 players.
Poker Tournament - Single Table Tournament Strategy
As with Multi Table Tournaments (MTT’s), ‘Sit and Go’ (SNG’s) or ‘Single Table Tournaments’ (STT’s) are also booming in the online poker community. Along with the standard cash prizes, many of the poker sites offer special promotional Sit and Go’s. Titan Poker’s Jackpot SNG’s offer a shot at winning as much as $100,000 for winning a set number of consecutive sit and go’s. Other sites like Absolute Poker set up many sit and go’s as qualifiers to World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour events.
Players enter for a set “buy in”. Registration is normally the same as for a ring game – you select your table and take your preferred seat. When the table is full, the tourney begins. Each player is given the same number of chips, and play continues until one lucky (or skillful) player has all the chips. Prize structures vary, but normally the last three players win money, with the winner taking roughly 50% of the prize fund.
Why are STT’s becoming so popular? MTT’s can be hard work, especially if you bust out after two hours, just outside the money. And we’ve all experienced the frustration of sitting patiently in a ring game, only to have AA cracked on the river by 98o.
STT’s offer the chance of first rate recreational play and, for a winning player, steady gains with far lower variance than that offered by a ring game. Here’s how:
Fun - With an STT you’re always in the game. You have to be. With games rarely lasting as long as an hour, you have to bet sooner or later. You must expect to bluff at some stage, and All-Ins are a certainty. Lots of All-Ins! And if you bust out early, there is no need to wait several hours for the next game at your level – just sit down at a new table and off you go.
Variance - For winning players, Single Table Tournament variance is far smaller than that dealt up by ring games. Your exposure to a bad beat (or a bad decision!) is limited to the entry fee for that tourney. And that very fact promotes bad play from the “gamblers” and “bluffers” – bad play that will fund your STT bankroll.
Easy! All you need to do is to work out how to be a winning Sit-n-Go player, and then the money will flow! Well its not that simple. All poker is situational, and this is especially true in the fast moving environment of the Single Table Tournament. But the basics set out in these pages should be enough to get you started on the way.
Although there are limit and high stakes SNG’s available, this strategy is based on experience of online, low stakes (up to $20), no limit holdem.
Video Poker Strategy
The debate of single coin vs. max coins concerns itself with games like Video Poker and Slots. A single coin bet would require depositing 1 coin, while playing max coins usually means risking 5 coins per spin or hand.Some Slots games have more than 1 line and a player also has to decide how many lines to play. If a game has 9 lines and a player wants to play max coins on all 9 lines then they’re looking at 45 coins per spin; that could add up fairly quickly.
There are a few factors to consider when deciding to play single coins vs. max coins.
Risk vs. awards
When playing a single coin the player’s risk is lower, but the possibility of winning big also decreases. If a player wants a healthier payout they should play max coins.
A bet with 5 coins will always pay 5 times more than a bet with 1 coin.
Progressives
If a player wants to win a Progressive jackpot then by all means they will have to risk max coins. Progressive jackpots, the most lucrative and also the hardest to hit payout in the casino, can only hit by playing max coins.
Imagine landing the combination to win the jackpot and you only bet 1 coin rather than the max. An event like that will have a player banging their head against the wall. Just be careful, when chasing Progressives obviously money can disappear a lot faster.
Budget
Keep the budget in mind. If getting close to running out of money and a player still wants to play it might be better to play single coins.
If up a lot of money then a player could afford to play max coins.
Time
Also, be alert as to how long you want to play. The longer a player’s in the casino the better it is for the casino. If a player wants to spend a long time gaming, for whatever reason, then single coin bets would be more advantageous.
If looking for a fast fix then play max coins. The awards will be bigger.
Before deciding to play single coins or max coins a player should understand the game they’re playing, the payout lines and the correct combinations that need to be hit.
How to calculate hand odds
Now that you’ve learned the proper way of calculating hand odds in Texas Hold’em, there is a shortcut that makes it much easier to calculate odds:
After you find the number of outs you have, multiply by 4 and you will get a close estimate to the percentage of hitting that hand from the Flop. Multiply by 2 instead to get a percentage estimate from the Turn. You can see these figures for yourself below:
| Sample Outs and Percentages from Above Chart | |||||
| 4 | 9% | 17% | 10 | 5 | Inside Straight / Two Pair to Full House |
| 6 | 13% | 24% | 6.7 | 3.2 | No Pair to Pair / Two Overcards |
As you can see, this is a much easier method of finding your percentage odds. But what about ratio odds? This is still done using this formula:
However, we can rephrase this equation so that your brain might process it a bit more easily:
Using 100 divided by the whole percentage number, such as 24%, we can easily see that 100/24 is equal to about 4. We minus 1 from that and get a rough estimate of our odds at about 3:1. Let’s try this all the way through with an example:
You hold: A♣ J♠
Flop is: 5♣ T♦ K♦
Total Outs: 4 Queens (Inside Straight) + 3 Aces (Overcard) - Q♦ or A♦ = 5 Outs
Percentage for Draw = 5 Outs × 4 = 20%
Odds = (100 / 20) - 1
= 5 - 1
= 4:1
Again, 4:1 odds means that can expect to make your draw 1 out of every 5 times. If the 1 out of 5 doesn’t make a ton of sense to you, think about the 1:1 odds of flipping heads or tails on a coin. You’ll flip heads 50% of the time, so 1 out of every 2 times it’ll come up heads.
Pot Odds and Poker Odds:
Now that you know how to calculate poker odds in terms of hand odds, you’re probably wondering “what am I going to need it for?” That’s a good question - this is where pot odds come into play.
Pot odds are simply the ratio of the amount of money in the pot to how much money it costs to call. If there is $100 in the pot and it takes $10 to call, your pot odds are 100:10, or 10:1. If there is $50 in the pot and it takes $10 to call, then your pot odds are 50:10 or 5:1. The higher the ratio, the better your pot odds are.
Pot odds ratios are a very useful tool to see how often you need to win the hand to break even. If there is $100 in the pot and it takes $10 to call, you must win this hand 1 out of 11 times in order to break even. The thinking goes along the lines of: If you play 11 times, it’ll cost you $110, but when you win once, you will get $110 ($100 + your $10 call).
The usefulness of hand odds and pot odds becomes very apparent when you start comparing the two. As we now know, in a flush draw, your hand odds for making your flush are 1.9 to 1. Let’s say you’re in a hand with a nut flush draw and it’s $5 to you on the flop to call. Do you call? Your answer should be: “What are my pot odds?”
If there is $15 in the pot plus a $5 bet from an opponent, then you are getting 20:5 or 4:1 pot odds. This means that, in order to break even, you must win 1 out of every 5 times. However, with your flush draw, your odds of winning are 1 out of every 3 times! You should quickly realize that not only are you breaking even, but you’re making a nice profit on this in the long run. Let’s calculate the profit margin on this by theoretically playing this hand 100 times from the flop, which is then checked to the river.
Net Cost to Play = 100 hands * $5 to call = -$500
Pot Value = $15 + $5 bet + $5 call
Odds to Win = 1.9:1 or 35% (From the flop)
Total Hands Won = 100 * Odds to Win (35%) = 35 wins
Net Profit = Net Cost to Play + (Total Times Won * Pot Value)
= -$500 + (35 * $25)
= -$500 + $875
= $375 Profit
As you can see, you have a great reason to play this flush draw, because you’ll be making money in the long run according to your hand odds and pot odds. The most fundamental point to take from this is:
If your Pot Odds are greater than your Hand Odds, then you are making a profit in the long run.
Even though you may be faced with a gut shot straight draw at times - which is a terrible draw at 5 to 1 hand odds - it can be worth it to call if you are getting pot odds greater than 5 to 1. Other times, if you have an excellent draw such as the flush draw, but someone has just raised a large amount so that your pot odds are 1:1, then you obviously should not continue trying to draw to a flush, as you will lose money in the long run. In this situation, a fold or semi-bluff is your only solution, unless you know there will be callers behind you that improve your pot odds to better than break-even.
Your ability to memorize or calculate your hand odds and pot odds will lead you to make many of the right decisions in the future - just be sure to remember that fundamental principle of profitably playing drawing hands requires that your pot odds are greater than your hand odds.