Every poker player in the world dreams of winning their first poker tournament, the following are tips taken from the experience of the professional players and various online gambling websites that want to help the up and coming player have a better chance at winning their first tournament. Whether it is online or face-to-face in a crowded room, the guidelines and helpful tips are the same.

How To Win Poker Tournaments Reddit
How To Win Online Poker Tournaments
How To Win Large Poker Tournaments

It seems every online poker site in the world is running a poker tournament series. PokerStars, GGPoker, 888poker, partypoker, and even Americas Cardroom has a tournament series running or scheduled. Most modern online series span at least two weeks and have 50 or more tournaments. From this basic analogy, it goes without saying that in any poker tournament it’s not mostly about how you plan to use the cards you, but how you strategize to beat your opponents. The breakdown of what it entails to win is just but combination of thinking above the cards you see on the screen.

5 General Tips to Win

Coming from the mouth of a big time poker tournament winner: Ben Carpenter, A.K.A. My Big Guns, states on that there are five general tips to winning a tournament.

1. Be Aggressive

The main thing that a player needs to do is be aggressive. The reason behind this is that in a tournament the player does not get enough time to sit around and fold every hand, waiting for the perfect hand to come along. Being aggressive does not mean bet on anything and everything, a player has to be smart enough to know when to fold, however a player that waits for the perfect hand to come along, will get beat out in the first round. Showing a more forward side can also represent confidence, and in poker confidence is a primary factor on who wins.

2. Pick on Weaker Opponents

A poker player should focus more on weaker opponents, making both their chip count higher, as well as getting rid of the extra weight. By doing this a player can assure a higher spot on the rankings, as well as being able to focus entirely on the harder opponents down the road.

3. Be Aggressive on the Bubble; do not be scared

In a poker tournament, there are usually a set number of players that will get paid. For instance, if the top 25 players get paid, then player number 26 is out of luck when eliminated. When there are only 26 players left, that is called the bubble. The player can’t show any fear at this point, they need to be aggressive and go for what they want. Most inexperienced players will get to this point and be afraid of losing, since they will not get any money. You have to take advantage of this and play with even more confidence.

4. Always Play for First

The right mentality is everything during a tournament. A lot of players buckle under the pressure, or give up before they should have. Always thinking and playing like you are going for first place is a must if you want to really achieve a victory. Mental power in other words can also go along way.

5. Do not Tilt

Tilting refers to when a player gets overly-aggressive and shows emotions of defeat and anger. A player should never display these kinds of feelings at the table, keeping calm and composed will let the other players know that you are not fazed by losing a big hand, and that they should be wary of what you will do next. If you do need to let off some steam, get up from the table and take a break.

How To Win Poker Tournaments Reddit

Other Tips to Win

How To Win Online Poker Tournaments

Coming from other US-friendly gambling sites, where they offer different tips on how to win poker tournaments.

1. Luck

Although skill and experience will get you far in a tournament, the player needs to have some luck on their side if they really want to win.

2. Gap Concept

The Gap Concept basically means that a player needs to have a stronger hand than their opponent whom opened the betting. This means that you need a strong hand to call on a bet, and more of a good hand when opening the bets yourself.

3. Focus

Focus on the table you are sitting at, and do not worry about the number or which players are left at the other tables. By keeping your concentration on the table you are at, it will allow you to read the players and their poker hands better – if playing live games – if online, you will at least get a better idea of their way of play (lose, aggressive, and so on).

4. Adapt and Change

A great poker player has the ability to know when to be aggressive and when to be tight. Poker tournament winners all have this ability, making them harder to read and allowing them to freely take over any table and player.

Everyday players are sitting down at the tables and consistently making fundamental mistakes because of lack of knowledge, misinformation or failing to maintain focus.

Even just a small strategical adjustment in poker can potentially save you a huge amount in the long run.

In this article we will point out some of the best live and online poker tournament strategy tips you can use to improve your game as quickly as possible.

Tip 1: Play The Right Starting Hands

Whether it be lack of patience, or an unfamiliarity with opening ranges, many tournament poker players still open too wide. This is especially true when it comes to early and middle position opens, where there are still many opponents left to act behind who can be dealt a strong hand.

The problem is when called, wide openers are often at a range disadvantage. Often being dominated by their opponents, they are vulnerable to 3 bets since they frequently won't have a holding strong enough to continue under pressure.

Furthermore, although opening a hand like 7 ♠ 5♠ might at times not be a terrible strategy from early or middle position, speculative hands like suited connectors and gappers, as well as small pairs, work best with deep stacks behind.

These speculative hand types infrequently connect strongly with the flop, so those times they do you want to have deep stakes behind to have the potential to win a huge pot. Modern day tournament structures often only see deep stack play occur during the first few levels of play. This leads us into the next tournament poker tip, being stack size aware.

Learn which hands to open raise in MTT's - Watch lesson 6.1 from the Road to Success MTT Course. A power-packed 50 minute video below, just use one of the button options to unlock it and get instant access.

Tip 2: Be Stack Size Aware

Effective stack size plays a critical role in a tournament players success.

Having a deep stack, and therefore expanding an opening range to include a lot of speculative suited hands and small pairs is a tournament strategy that is going to be punished if a number of short stacks are yet to act behind. This most notably occurs in turbo tournaments where the average stack size is quite short.

Short stacks will be in push-or-fold mode. Being short, they don't have time to wait and will be looking to take any opportunity they can to move all-in. This high rate of all-ins will leave wide openers frequently being forced to relinquish their hands, without even having the opportunity to try to hit a nice flop. Problematic hands often include; J8s , KTo and weak Ax hands.

It's not just short-stacks that can cause a problem, aggressive players will be looking to attack wide-openers. This is especially true when a player opens with a vulnerable M8-M14 (20bb-35bb) stack. 3 bets get good leverage against this stack size, since continuing in the pot represents committing a significant portion of a players stack.

Wide openers would be wise not to commit a large percentage of their stack with marginal holdings, and so will be forced to fold, or face being in a high-risk situation. Staying aware of your own stacks utility, as well as anticipating how opponents will utilize their stacks, is an important tournament poker tip to keep in mind.

POKER TIP: If you are currently using BB to calculate stack size, here's a look at why using 'M' is a better MTT strategy.

Tip 3: Be Careful Overplaying In The Early Stages

As a stack gets deeper, the less willing a competent player will be to put their entire stack at risk since they have more to lose. It's rare to see good players all-in during the early stages of a tournament with hands like AKo or JJ preflop.

Smart players recognize that their counterparts aren't going to be risking their entire stack with weaker hands like AQo . Therefore, even a stro

Poker How To Win Tournaments