Early Game
The early game is from the start of the tournament to
when there are only half the entrants left in the
tournament. How well you do in this stage will have a big
impact on whether or not you will make the money. In this stage, you MUST play group 1 and 2
aggressively, aggressively meaning all in. You may even want
to throw in all pocket pairs as well. The reason being is
that anyone who calls will typically have an ace or king or
a pair as well.. You want to catch someone with a weaker
hand and double up early. If faced with a raise or all-in
you might want to call and hope to catch something. The
reason for this is that most people will be doing this also
but most will have a weaker starting hand requirements than
you. Being able to double up early is a great advantage
because when the blinds
are cheap you can call small raises with small pocket pairs, high
connected cards and suited or A whatever suited in order to
catch a flop so you can lure people in or even bully them
out of the pot when you swing in your stack. If the flop is not
to your advantage you should fold. If you waste chips now by
calling with everything (so choose your hands carefully and
use position to your advantage), you will lose the double up effect.
Would you rather double with 900 chips or 1000 chips? The
point in playing aggressive is to catch the weaker bingo
players when you have a strong hand to accumulate chips
quickly. If everyone folds you win the blinds if someone or
many people call it, it should turn out good because your
odds of doubling up (doubling your chips stack) is
high.
Don't be afraid to all in a raise when you're holding a
group 1 hand or even group 2 hands like AK, AQ and sometimes
AJ (suited, or not). Remember the point is to accumulate chips,
without chips you will never make it to the money. What's
even worse, is if you get blinded out (the blinds are higher
than your chip stack) 5-10 places out of the money.
Keep in mind that in tournaments the blinds keep increasing every set
amount of time AND there will be antes (depending on the site and/or tournament) so
if you don't keep accumulating chips early when the blinds
are small and people are more willing to bet, eventually the
blinds will over take your chip stack and you will be forced
to play a bad or weak hand in the mid game which will not
make you any money.
Also many players will be playing like this and when you
enter the mid game if your chip stack is not average you may
be in trouble, especially if you have a few large stacks at
your table because they will call you with a wide range of
hands trying to hit a flop and busting you. The principle
being, the bigger your chip stack the more pots you can
enter.
REMEMBER
If you're going to get busted out of
the tournament you might as well get busted earlier in the
game so you don't waste unnecessary time. Move on to the
next free roll.
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