patience in poker tournaments is key

Deuce · Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 38

Patience is really one of the major factors in the success of winning a poker tournament. I know every player wants to play cards, that why they came. But the thing is playing bad cards because you are a bit bored will defiantly damage your stack. It may even lead to you getting knocked out of there and know body wants that. Right? You need to keep in mind that every chip you waist in an average to marginal hand could be worth two or three times the amount if you keep it and use it later.

If you are a beginner player it’s better for you to stick to group 1/group 2 hands and playing with those very aggressively. You may not at first win many, or any at all with your beginning strategy, but you will get deep in there most of the time. If you are playing a lot of freerolls, getting onto the later stages of the game will make it so that you are playing against the better players. You can watch them and learn a great deal from them. As you improve, you can start to increase the range of hands that you want to play. 

I am not speaking as a pro because I am also an intermediate player myself. I have only been playing for 9 months, but I’ve done pretty well for such a short amount of time. This is strategy I started with and it worked out for me so I’d suggest doing the same. Good luck!