The popularity of No-Limit Texas Holdem tournaments in land-based casinos and online poker rooms is truly amazing. Fueled by the World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker, a lot of players are thrilled by these competitions and enter numerous satellites chasing a chance to win the big score. Today most of No-Limit Texas Holdem is played in tournaments.

No-Limit Texas Holdem tournaments have amazing variance, since all the chips get shoved in preflop on nearly hit-or-miss odds in the end of a tournament. For instance, a pocket pair versus AK is a very typical confrontation in the end of a No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament.

This doesn’t mean that you should keep away from No-Limit Texas Holdem tournaments, but at the same time you shouldn’t believe that such tournaments are all skill and not luck. Unlike ring games, where wise professionals always win in the long run, in tournaments you must be lucky, because you must win a lot of those hit-or-miss battles.

Early rounds.

First, the No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament strategy is quite different from the one applied in No-Limit Texas Holdem ring games. The major difference between these two types of the game relies in applicability of bluffs. Bluffing in ring games is effective, but you can’t bluff as much in tournaments, since player’s stacks tend to be smaller in relation to the pot size. Besides of this, since the amount of chips you win through bluffs is smaller than the amount you stand to lose, bluffing significantly loses in value. That is because if you bluff 5,000 chips for a 5,000 chips pot considering that you have a 50 to 60% of taking it down, those 5,000 chips you win are worth much less than 5,000 chips you stand to lose, since if you have a 10,000 chips stack, then cutting it down to 5,000 chips is much more negative than getting it up to 15,000 chips. Try to remember that in tournaments chips don’t represent real money – they are just a key to the tournament prize, which means that losing a half of your stack knocks you back from your victory, while winning 5,000 chips won’t make you win at the moment.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can just fold your way into the money. The blind bets will devour your stack, so you must win pots in order to stay alive. When you will reach the late stages of the tournament, you can hunt for pots in order to knock your opponents out and win the tournament, but most of time you are ought to win pots just not to get knocked out of the game.

Hence, during the early rounds of a multi-table No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament, your goal is to avoid gambling much, since the amount you win is rarely worth the gamble. You still should see easy flops and win sure pots. For example, if you can cheaply see the flop holding suited connectors, or if your opponent goes all-in preflop, while you hold a pair of Aces – just go for it without any doubt. Nevertheless, it is a foolish decision to bluff all-in. During the early rounds your goal is to win huge pots, when you hold the nuts.

Middle rounds.

Towards the middle of a multi-table No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament you need to stop and slightly change your play. Blinds got bigger, so stealing the blind bets can help you stay in the game. At this point the gap concept appears to be more important. It takes a way weaker hand than normal to raise in order to steal the blind, but a slightly stronger hand than normal to call a raise. The middle rounds of a multi-table No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament introduce a “survival mode” concept.

Generally, most of the time, your goal is just to survive and earn to your stack chip by chip throughout the middle rounds. You need to avoid severe confrontation, when you don’t hold the nuts or near-nuts and just hit some average and small non-controversial pots.

Nevertheless, if your stack is pretty huge, you should try to take advantage of the survival mode. This means that you should try to take control of the game by raising and often putting your opponents at a decision for all of their chips. This way you can induce them risk all-in, while you risk just a slice of your stack and still can keep on fighting, even if you lose the pot. However, you shouldn’t be too generous in this sort of decisions. Try to steal some pots, but don’t encourage your opponents to call you all-in with top pair or even second pair. Tend to do this against weak players, because they will probably call anything.

Late rounds.

Towards the end of a multi-table No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament comes the time, when those hit-or-miss decisions become very important. The blinds are usually so high that it makes sense for those players, who have thin or average stacks, to go all-in preflop. Basically, when you make this decision, you want to have an Ace and some high kicker, or at least a pocket pair. For example, if you hold an Ace and some high kicker, then you are generally in advantage against all unpaired hands and even may have some of your opponents dominated and if you hold a pocket pair, then you are a small advantage against all sorts of unpaired hands and at a significant advantage, or disadvantage against the rest of pocket pairs depending on their value.

In fact, if you hold one of these marginal hands, then you should consider to just shove all of your chips preflop. When your stack is pretty thin, you cannot afford to post blind bets anymore. When the board comes, there are chances that it isn’t going to be perfect. Shoving all-in preflop, you have the added chance of stealing the blinds from your opponents and also can avoid being bluffed out.